


The Good, The Bad and The Walrus

by forwhenmybrainhurts



Category: Minecraft - Fandom, The Yogscast
Genre: Character Death, Comedy, Drama, Minecraft, Minor Original Character(s), Minor Violence, Swearing, Western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 02:10:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2834324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forwhenmybrainhurts/pseuds/forwhenmybrainhurts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world of Minecraft, three friends wake up in the desert, with no knowledge of how they got there. They had been together, but were now apart, and alone. They must get back to each other, find out how they got there, and who is behind their unwelcome adventure.</p>
<p>Spiritual sequel to <a href="">An Epic Hatventure</a></p>
<p>My submission to the Yogscast Big Bang.</p>
<p>Huge thanks go to <a href="http://zurgetron.tumblr.com/">Zurgetron</a> and <a href="http://tigerphantom.tumblr.com/">tigerphantom</a> for their stunning artwork to accompany!</p>
<p>Also massive thank you to <a href="http://ymirjotunn.tumblr.com/">Ren</a> for going through the whole thing with a finely toothed comb, to make this piece as good as it could be.</p>
<p>I made a playlist too. Here is <a href="http://open.spotify.com/user/queen_zombie/playlist/4CkQWrAbtlgrvcsvZpeTo1">Spotify</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJDnJ0vXUgw&list=PLOrJKFKQR3ZiqAY7jM0AkonBHim2yQkZy">YouTube</a> (I can't work 8tracks properly)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Good, The Bad and The Walrus

Trottimus stirred, and immediately felt a stabbing headache. His eyes hurt as he tried to open them, thanks to the sunlight in the blue sky above him. He was outside, then. And from the chill in the air, it must have been early morning. As he attempted to move his heavy muscles, he found his environment to be more than a little uncomfortable. For some reason he was lying in a metal feeding trough, and the surprise was enough to heave him to a sitting position. A disgruntled horse bid him a sarcastic greeting with a low snort, as Trottimus faced him.

 

 

 

He was struggling to get out, without causing himself injury, or pulling the whole thing over with him, his whole body in pain, when a voice sang over to him from behind.  
“Well, someone had a heavy night.”  
Again, surprise caused the walrus to forget his aches, and he turned sharply. A portly, old man stood observing the ridiculous situation. He was dressed in a black suit, a white shirt, adorned with a black apache scarf, and had his thumbs tucked into the top of a grey waistcoat under the black jacket.  
Trottimus also observed the smugly amused smile sitting under a grey moustache on the man’s ruddy face, and he found it irritating.  
“It was not a heavy night, I just woke up here.” The irritation rose, as the man shamelessly laughed at the walrus, still stuck in the trough.  
“My, where you from, boy? You got a mouth like a real gent!”  
“Pardon me?” Trottimus found that he was most definitely not in the mood to joke and laugh with this stranger, and decided not to humour him any further by letting him reply. “Look, just help me out, would you?”  
“Sure, son,” the man replied, strolling over, quite sprightly given his age and the size of his middle. After some huffing and puffing from both men, looked on by the very amused horse, Trottimus finally made it out of the feeding trough. He stumbled a little on his weary legs, and the strange man finally looked a little serious.  
“You cant’ve have been out here all night. You’d have froze to death! How did you end up in my yard?”  
Trottimus was silent for a while, trying to piece his memory together, but found nothing. “I honestly don’t know. I was at home, tidying up after dinner, and then I woke up here.” A thought hit him. “Where are my friends?” He looked at the old man, imploring, but the man looked solemnly back.  
“I ain’t seen no other fellas around. I’ve walked the perimeter, ended up here, just like every morning, and there’s just you what seems out of place, son.”  
Alsmiffy and Djh3max had been setting up a card game in the living room at the time which Trottimus lost his memory, and it was making the beady-eyed man-walrus panic. He finally looked all around at where he was, and his breath was lost. A vast expanse of desert, as far as the horizon unfolded in front of his eyes, the already hot sun grilling the land, like an overdone pork chop.  
Trottimus turned on his heel and faced more vast land, but this land was freckled with wooden houses, barns and animal pens. Towards the south east, a row of buildings on either side of a dirt road stretched for a good mile at least, and it looked ghostly, dead.  
The walrus shivered, and clutched an arm over himself, the panic starting to rise.  
“Where the fuck am I?”

Rubbing his eyes as they were burning and itchy with exhaustion, the bearded man known at first by the name Djh3max, but Ross pretty soon after, awoke inside a small room. He was lying on the hard, wooden floor, only a foot or so away from a scratchy-looking pile of woolen blankets, clearly used as a bed. While they may have been rough, and a far cry from his bed at home, it still would have been far more comfortable to have woken up there, rather than on the floor.  
Ross grumbled, as he rolled over to push himself up, “Trott? Smith? What the hell did you guys do?”  
His head swam as he stood up, and Ross had to support himself on the nearest wall, also made of wooden planks. Blinking sleep out of his eyes, he saw that he was alone. There was no other furniture in the room, no windows, and the only door obviously led straight outside, streams of sunlight shooting through the gaps in the wood, and hitting the opposing wall like beams of fire.  
As his senses became more awake, Ross noticed the smell of the room. It was damp and musty, unaired, like the blankets had been there for a long while and had remained unwashed. He could also hear a distant spider, its terrifying noises carrying themselves a long way, and echoing very slightly off the walls of the small cabin. Ross’ heart rate increased. He hated spiders, but at least it wouldn’t be dangerous in the sun if he left it alone.  
Ross was desperate to know where he was. It sounded barren and vast. What about other monsters? Creepers? He checked himself. Nothing. Not one item on him. He decided to try and peer through one of the gaps in the wooden door.  
A desert was revealed to him. A never ending expanse of lifelessness. Even the cacti looked like totems of death.  
He couldn’t see the spider, but it was still making a racket. He could, however, see a green creeper in the distance, its grim face looking in his direction, then turning to the left. Ross hitched his breath. It was too far away to pay any attention to him if he was to leave the cabin, but it didn’t make the thing any less intimidating.  
Of course, there was also the issue that Ross couldn’t see much out of the gap, so who was to say that there wasn’t another creeper right outside, blocked from Ross’ view?  
He attempted a look through one of the other gaps, lower down, to see anything more. Squinting at the sunlight, which was starting to irritate his tired eyes, his attention was drawn to a flickering reflection in the sand, just outside. It was unmistakably a torch, to the left of the door. The chances of creepers right outside the door was slim.  
Even still, it was still a possibility...yet he couldn’t stay where he was. He had to find his friends, and find out where he was, and what had happened. Mustering his courage, standing tall and taking a deep breath, he blinked again, opened the door and stepped outside.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” moaned Alsmiffy, stretching his long limbs back into life, frustrated at the lack of memory of the night before. The first thing he noticed was how cold he was. Looking up, he saw stone looming to his left, hanging over him, causing him to be lying in shadow on the harsh ground. However, he was surrounded by a small fence, adorned with torches, which had clearly kept the monsters away as he had slept.  
The green man looked over his shoulder to the right, and the expanse of desert made him heave a shaky sigh.  
“What the fuck?” he asked to the ripples of heat, bouncing off the warmed earth.  
Alsmiffy didn’t move for a long while. He just stared at how lost he was. He hadn’t been lost for a long time, and it was a terribly unwelcome feeling. He knew his friends were nowhere near. He just knew.  
Finally sitting up, more for some warmth than anything, he crawled to sit in the pounding sunlight, which made him squint. Once his eyes adjusted, he watched a few spiders move around, seemingly pointlessly. “What did they even do during the day?” the sharply dressed man asked himself, scowling at them.  
He noticed a creeper, standing on a small mound, overlooking the land around, and he mimed taking a powerfully accurate shot at it with his bow. “If only,” he grumbled, and rested his chin on his hand, which was supported on his knee, sulkily.  
Alsmiffy was used to having at least one guide, and those guides keeping him focused, motivated and out of trouble. What was he supposed to do without them? He had no weapons, no tools, no armour, nothing. There were no trees around, either.  
He heaved another sigh, and told himself he would just have to come up with the answers. He didn’t like that thought much.  
Drumming the fingers of his other hand on his other knee, the green man looked around. Fences. He could take them apart, and make himself some tools. Not the most efficient tools, but it would be better than venturing without them. And venturing was his only option.  
Still trying to figure out how he had found himself in this place, tutting at his scuffed Oxfords, and cursing the small splinters, the tall, slim gent compiled a crude set of tools, and set about putting them to use on his surroundings. His headstrong nature allowed him to fashion less crude tools, fight off a couple of creepers - his nimble legs steering him away from the bone-chilling hiss they made before blowing up - and clamber to the top of the ridge he had been lying under. At first he despaired at seeing nothing. “Oh shit,” he whined.  
But then, a blur amongst the heatwaves caught his eye. He shielded his gaze, until it became more evident that it was something of interest. “Oh shit,” he repeated, this time gleefully.

Trottimus held his folded arms close to his chest, hunched over at the kitchen table of the man who had found him in his yard. The well-fed stranger had finally asked for Trottimus’ name, and had given his own in return; Mayor Hobie. The lost walrus guessed why the farm was so large, why Hobie lived on the edge of town, why he had a full, sweet smelling kitchen, and why Hobie had been the only person around that early in the morning. Being mayor would have its advantages.  
“Yes, that’s right. My pa was mayor before me, and my son is on his way to taking over when my time comes,” Hobie explained.  
Trottimus looked around at the apparently empty ground floor.  
“Oh, he’s outside, tending the farm. First job of the day is to feed and clean them animals, you know?” There was a bowl on the table in front of Trottimus, containing broken up bread, and something else, which the walrus-man hoped was cured pork. Hobie indicated the food, and added, “After breakfast, of course.”  
“What’s the second job?” Trottimus asked, a little sarcasm weaved into his tone, as the mayor had simply insisted on telling stories about the town he ran, flowing away on tangents at any opportunity. It must have been midmorning by then.  
“Well, you can’t go into town and look for your friends on an empty stomach, now. Eat.” Hobie grinned, perhaps a little too much, and the walrus turned away, embarrassed that his sarcasm had not gone unnoticed.

Once he had eaten some of the bread - which was not at all bad - and nibbled at the meat, purely to keep the old man happy, the two set out towards the dirt road, and the buildings which adjoined on both sides.  
People seemed to be simply going round their daily lives, nodding and greeting Mayor Hobie - who simply dawdled, and hushed the walrus whenever he tried to ask about looking for Ross and Alsmiffy - and acknowledging Trottimus, which lifted his spirits a little, even if everyone shook their heads when asked about his friends. No one seemed to have time to stop and chat, and Trottimus wondered what on earth could be eating up everyone’s time. There were shops, bars, and places to buy and repair all sorts of equipment, but not much else really. Besides that, if all these people worked at these places, why on earth were they all wandering around, looking so busy?  
The walrus-man’s questions were answered by running footsteps, and he turned to see a short, young man, who ran up to Hobie from behind, a big grin plastered over his face. His large-brimmed hat was clearly too big for him, and he was holding something in his dirty hand.  
“Mayor, mayor I found some!” Trottimus realised the person was, in fact, female. She had large hazel eyes, surrounded by long eyelashes, as she looked up, surprised by Trottimus’ curious look, and she flinched with embarrassment.  
“Oh, I’m sorry sir. Howdy,” she greeted, and took her hat off to Trottimus, revealing a short, dark brown haircut. She looked a little worried at the man’s reaction, as if she may have thought he was someone important.  
“Hi,” Trottimus replied, smiling one of his warm, welcoming smiles, to try and ease the girl’s anxiousness. It seemed to work, as she relaxed.  
“I’m Frankie,” the girl said, holding an enthusiastic hand out to shake.  
Trottimus took it. “Trottimus,” he said.  
Frankie seemed to falter again, looking briefly at Mayor Hobie, questioning.  
“Trott, if you like,” the white-coated walrus smiled again. “I’m from somewhere far away, but nowhere posh. Don’t look so worried.”  
This seemed to work for Frankie, and she explained that “old folks” - whilst glancing at Hobie once again - thought she “ought to be more of a lady, greetin’ folks.”  
Trott replied with a shrug, to say it didn’t bother him, and he could see she was itching to carry on with her initial story.  
“What have you got?” He asked.  
Frankie slowly opened her hand, to reveal the distinctive glint of gold. She hushed her speech, “I found it myself. Papa let me go out and look with my brother, and I found it.”  
“Fantastic!” Trott exclaimed, “What are you going to do with it?”  
Frankie looked suddenly confused, and turned to Hobie, this time blatantly asking. The walrus joined Frankie in staring at Hobie, but the mayor looked just as dumbfounded.  
“Where it always goes,” he said, as if it were obvious.  
“What do you mean?” asked Trott.  
“It’s going where the other gold goes, where all the gold goes,” Frankie explained, and Trottimus’ eyes narrowed even further than usual.  
“Okay.” He decided now might not be the time to ask too many questions. He was starting to feel hungry again, and he still hadn’t found his friends.  
Changing the subject, the walrus asked Frankie if she had seen Ross or Alsmiffy. When she replied no, and Trott had asked if she was sure, her reply made him laugh for the first time since the night before, during dinner, when he and his housemates had spoken of their tribulations that day, looking for clay to build a small extension out of bricks.  
“Sir, I apologise, but if I had seen two fellas matching them descriptions, I’d have remembered.”  
Trott wondered if Frankie might be more helpful than the mayor, in finding his co-adventurers.  
“So, do you think they could have stayed in one of the inns?” Frankie asked, looking up and down the road.  
“Could have. And they’re either drinking or still sleeping. That wouldn’t surprise me, in all honesty.” Trottimus decided to get rid of Hobie. As nice as he was, his lack of motivation was annoying. “Mayor, thank you for your help, and for looking after me, but I’m sure you have plenty of mayor stuff to do. Maybe Frankie could help me find my friends.” Frankie smiled, excitedly.  
Hobie looked warmly at the two of them. “Well, you ain’t wrong, son. I was enjoying the excuse to not do the paperwork, but it always catches up with you, one way or the other.” He guffawed to himself, and took the walrus’ hand in a hearty shake. “Good luck, son. Hope you don’t leave too soon. We got a dance coming up, would love you folks to come along.”  
Before Trott could say any more than another thank you, the man was hopping down the road, towards the tallest building, which Trott guessed was the town hall.  
“Right, we should start at Clyde’s,” Frankie stated, pointing towards the nearest and biggest bar, and leading the way, purposefully.

Ross’ skilled movements had allowed him to escape the dangers of the desert; a few creepers who were thankfully stark against the ground, and easy to spot from a distance. However, he was very aware of the sun, and the fact he had nothing on him. It was a completely desperate situation, and he found it hard not to curl up into a ball of tears. Only the thought that he might come across a well soon kept him going, and he checked the sun’s pattern to make sure he didn’t walk in circles. It was fun to get lost, and wander aimlessly, when he was with the other two, but not so much on his own.  
Always logical, the bearded man found his straight-thinking challenged, unable to find food or tools, and panic started to rise. It took the best of him to hold from simply calling his friend’s names across the great, dead land. He carried on.  
The sun was central, when Ross spotted a curiosity in the distance. He couldn’t help but quicken his pace to get to it. Whatever it was, it meant that some sort of life was nearby. As the blur took form, it became apparent that it was a small camp, surrounded by a fence.  
“I’m saved,” Ross said aloud, collapsing through the gate, closing it behind him, and diving to the chest beside the bed.  
It contained some cobblestone, a few planks of wood, and three spider eyes. Even if Ross had to sleep here, he would rather journey in the morning on an empty stomach than eat spider eyes.  
He took the liberty to craft some stone tools, but was interrupted as he kitted himself up, by a noise which made him jump so far, he thought he’d left his skin behind.  
“Oi!”  
A trademark Ross scream coupled with his spinning around made Alsmiffy clutch his stomach with laughter.  
“Shit!” Was all Ross could manage, before the tall, green man bombed his way through the gate to clutch his friend.  
“Oh, man. I thought you were a goner. Or I was,” Alsmiffy said, grinning broadly.  
“Ditto,” Ross replied, still shaken. He always refrained from scolding his friend too much. It never seemed to help.  
“Smith, where the heck are we?” His question slipped without control, and came out as a high-pitched whine, desperate for a little reassurance that his friend would know more than he, but alas, the green man’s sky blue eyes were as empty of answers as Ross’ mind.  
Smith looked helplessly at his friend, and simply stated, “I don’t know.” He gripped Ross’ arm in support, as he continued, “I don’t know how we got here, I don’t know what happened. All I remember is getting the cards ready for poker, and then blackness.” His expression questioned whether his housemate had remembered anything more.  
Ross confirmed, “Same. I remember the table laid out, Trott getting ready to join us, then I woke up in a shack.”  
“We need to find him. If he’s in any state we were, he’s got to be panicking big time.” Despite his mischievous tendencies, Alsmiffy was fiercely protective of his friends, and now that Ross was with him, he could only think of finding Trott, uniting the trio fully once more.  
Ross chewed his lip, anxiously, placed his hands on his hips and looked around him. “Which way?” He breathed, a nervous laugh underlying the question, as he knew his friend was as clueless as he was.  
Smith joined him in looking around at their plight. And the cogs were turning, but Ross’ desperate tones were unnerving him. The dark-haired man was always so sure, and even if he didn’t take the lead, he would be right there, pursuing the aim with purpose, and seeing it through to the end. For him to question Smith with such a sense of defeat was frankly scary.  
Gulping down the feeling, Smith cleared his head. “It’s already the afternoon. I think we need to stay here, and venture out in the morning. We’ll be safe enough.”  
Images of damn spiders flashed through Ross’ imagination, and he hugged the newly crafted stone sword close to him.  
“We’ll take turns on watch. There’s only one bed anyway.”  
Smith nodded in agreement. And then he smiled at his friend, “Do you want some food?” He produced some bread and a couple of steaks, and Ross could have cried. “I found a chest, just on its own, way back,” Smith indicated the west, where he had come from.  
The afternoon was spent discussing what could have possibly happened to them, eating some - but not all - of the food, and reassuring each other that their co-adventurer Trottimus was safe.

Trott sighed, heavily. “They’re not anywhere.” It was late evening, the sky was adorned with stars, and Frankie had been guiding the walrus around most of the town, with absolutely no news of his friends. The two new companions were slumped wearily at the bar of Clyde’s after going full circle, and the bartender was keeping a steady supply of drinks coming.  
Clyde’s was the only saloon bar with bedrooms for travellers, and Trottimus had been told that it was the centre of life during big events in the town.  
It was only after the third round, when Trott’s fingers had started to tingle, that he questioned the rather young lady at his side. “Should you be drinking?”  
Frankie looked furiously back at him, “I’m 12, not a child!” She huffed, slammed the small glass back on the bar, and gestured for the tender to come over.  
The very stunned walrus-man was unable to respond, but when the young bartender spotted Frankie, he looked exasperated, and strolled over.  
“Now, Frankie, your father would want you home now, surely? It’s another day tomorrow, huh?” He took the glass from in front of her, and raised his eyebrows, until she backed down with a sigh.  
“Fine.” She turned to her new friend. “Trott, do you want to come stay at my house? My pa has some blankets. We don’t have a bed.” She paused, and looked a little confused, clearly doubting the offer she had just made.  
“I might be better off sleeping here, Frankie,” Trott smiled, and patted the girl on the shoulder. She nodded with a sideways grin.  
“I’ll come find you tomorrow, okay?”  
“Sure. And thank you for helping me out, Frankie.” Trott held his hand out for Frankie to shake.  
The grin spread across her face, and she turned to leave. “Night.” Trottimus waved the girl goodbye, and wondered how far away her house was.  
Turning to the bartender, he asked, “Is she okay walking home?”  
The young man placed his hands on the bar to lean. “Oh yeah, everyone knows her. Plus she only lives at the end of the road.”  
Trott nodded, reassured. “I’m Trott, by the way.” He introduced himself with a handshake to the young tender.  
“Clyde,” the well-dressed young man responded. Trott had expected him to be an apprentice, or a Clyde Jr, rather than the proprietor.  
“You’re Clyde? You’re so young!”  
Clyde laughed, “Well yes, but after my uncle George was tossed out of town, I have taken over.”  
Trottimus was taken aback. He could only picture a small, old man, walking alone in the desert, and he felt sad. “Oh,” was all he could say.  
Clyde laughed again. “He tried to steal gold, but got caught. He’d been working with bandits for years. I assume he’s either part of their gang, or they killed him. He left on a horse, saying we’d all pay for humiliating him, or some shit.  
“I’d been his apprentice, so when he left I naturally took over. Gave it a new name, and kept it running smooth for the last two years.”  
Trott’s reply was a more understanding “Oh,” and he then pictured a maniacal man on a horse, dressed in black, and glaring at the terrified townsfolk. “I’m sorry.”  
Clyde shrugged, “Hey, there’s always a black sheep, right?”  
Trott nodded, and a wave of exhaustion crashed over him. He yawned. “Have you got anything to eat, Clyde?”  
Clyde smiled, and showed a gap in his teeth. “Why, sure,” he replied.  
He was given a freshly cooked chop, and some mushroom stew. It was watery and bland compared to Smith’s, which caused a pang of sadness and guilt in Trott’s stomach, so much so he couldn’t eat much of it. He felt guilty that he was safe and warm, and well-fed, when his best friends could be anywhere.  
Once he had thanked Clyde, and bid a goodnight to the people in the bar, he dragged his heavy feet up the stairs to his room, for a restless night’s sleep.

The morning hit, like five layers of gravel, and Trottimus found it hard to even sit up. Where the heck would he start? The village was in the middle of nowhere, and there was simply no indication which direction to start searching in first.  
The thought of Alsmiffy and Ross being in that barren landscape, facing the same problem, but alone, was enough to motivate the walrus to get up, washed and dressed.  
Frankie was eagerly waiting at the bar, and grinned as Trott descended the stairs. He smiled back, albeit not as enthusiastic as the young girl.  
“Come meet my pa,” Frankie said, as soon as he hit the wooden floor, and held an encouraging hand out. Trott took it, and was led outside, to see a man, younger than he may have looked at first, wearing a green and black silk wild rag scarf, a dark brown suede cowboy hat, and a tan coloured jacket, reaching to the man’s knees, and left open. He wore a simple white shirt, dirtied by sand and mining dust, and black trousers. Both of the man’s thumbs were hooked into his belt, and four dogs sat patiently at his ankles. He was the epitome of cowboy, and Trott instantly decided that he needed a hat just like that one.  
“Howdy,” Trottimus said, before he could stop himself.  
The man’s eyes glistened with amusement, but his face stayed serious “Good morning, sir,” he replied, and the men exchanged a handshake.  
“I’m not a sir, really. Just a ragged traveller.” Stop. Stop, now, Trott told himself.  
“My name’s Jensen. Frankie told me your story, and I thought I might help. Me and the dogs, that is.”  
Trottimus looked down to the dogs at Jensen’s feet. He instantly thought of the travels he had been on in the past, and of the many times he and his friends had picked up dogs along the way. A pain started in the walrus’ throat, and he swallowed until it descended to his stomach.  
“My friends always loved dogs,” he said, mournfully. Recalling the many “accidents” they had all had with pets in the past, Trott bent down to pet the dogs. They all came to meet him, and welcomed the attention, softly licking him. One even leaned its chin upon one of the white-coated man’s shoulders, and he fought tears as hard as he could.  
“Don’t worry. These dogs will find ‘em. We will find ‘em.” Jensen offered a hand to heave the walrus-man back to his feet. A pat on the back focused Trott’s mind again, and brought him out of his despair. There was no point in looking or trying if he thought it was no good, so he had to believe Jensen, and had to believe that his friends were still alive, somewhere.

“Look, I came from there, you came from there. We can narrow down the search to two directions,” Ross had found his confidence after the comfort of having one of his friends at his side. The night had not been exactly comfortable, but the two travellers had eaten well, and slept enough to start on their search for Trott.  
“All I’m saying is, we might have gone in the wrong direction in the first place, and need to backtrack.”  
Ross sighed. He knew that Smith was right, but he didn’t want the panic to set in again. If they kept going in some sort of direction for long enough, they were bound to find something. The chances of finding something hopeful would be higher if they followed a direction which they hadn’t been before.  
“Come on, Smith. We found each other somehow. We can find Trott too. This way. We have supplies, and each other.”  
The green man’s blue eyes relaxed into an affectionate understanding. He was so relieved to have Ross with him, and to know that they would be able to stop each other losing faith, or wanting to give up. “Okay,” he croaked, and smiled as he led the way east.

They had walked for a little while, the sun beaming down just over halfway across the sky, and the dust thick in the air, when Smith stopped and furrowed his brow. There had been an unknown question niggling at him since they left, and it had finally come to him.  
“How did we manage to find each other?” Ross stopped too, and looked back to his companion. “I mean, what were the chances of us finding each other so fast?”  
Ross wasn’t really in the mood for questioning life’s phenomena, and he exasperatedly shrugged, eager to carry on, so the pain in his feet wouldn’t set in. “Luck,” he stated, as if it were fact.  
Smith gave a frown back. “You don’t believe in luck,” he accused.  
Ross didn’t reply with words, rather a frustrated shake of the head.  
“Why did you choose to go in the direction you did?” Smith asked, folding his long arms across his chest.  
Ross questioned for a moment, not sure of what exactly compelled him to walk the way he did, but then shook his head again.  
“Look, I think you are reading way too much into this, Smith. Can we just carry on, please?”  
Smith wasn’t listening by this point, however. His arms dropped to his side, and a smile of relief and joy splashed over his face. Ross frowned even harder, until Smith dropped to his knees, and was met by a triumphant dog, who yapped a couple of times at them both, before jumping into the green man’s pinstriped lap to kiss his face.  
“It’s a dog!” Ross exclaimed in disbelief. It was wearing a collar, so it must belong to someone. He chanced to look round, and spotted two more dogs, running towards them, another appeared over a small hill, and made its way to join his pack; but tears stung Ross’ eyes, as behind them all, was the image of a walrus in a white coat, trudging his feet along the sand.  
Trott stopped as he heard the dogs barking ahead of them, and his heart started beating fast in his chest. He took a deep breath to ready himself for something terrible, and looked up from where he had been staring at the ground. “Oh gods,” was all he could manage, breathlessly, before finding strength to run towards his best friends. 

 

The united trio walked together, at a steady pace, but enjoying their conversation too much to notice their weary muscles and heavy eyelids.  
They hurriedly discussed the past few days, and the events which had occurred, juxtaposed with theories and conspiracies about how it had come to be.  
"Ross, this is what I mean. How did we manage to meet Trott here? In the middle of nowhere. We walked in just the right direction, first time." Smith did have a very good point, but no one could make anything from it. It seemed familiar even, but at the same time, they were just asking more questions, and answering none.  
Jensen and Frankie walked a little way ahead, with the dogs, giving the friends space to talk. They were a strange group to say the least. The two taller gentlemen were dressed finely, even if the dark-haired one looked positively feral in comparison to the slim green fella, his straggly beard in need of grooming, and his hair a little too long, in big, thick waves.

Once the troupe had made it back to the town, they headed straight for Clyde's. The owner greeted them with a friendly drink each, and expressed his gladness and relief that the previously downtrodden walrus had found his companions.  
Indeed, Trott cracked jokes, relaxed into his seat, rather than in his hunched, self-pitying stance of the previous night, and joined the other two in sporadic bouts of song. The relief was enough to let him enjoy the mushroom stew, congratulating Clyde on the flavour, and offer to make some of his trademark cake.  
Frankie, Jensen and the dogs were sat with them, more and more curious about the characters as time went on. They had obviously been together as travelling companions for a long time, and the way they would speak to each other - almost going into their own language - made it seem as if there was something otherworldly about them.  
The moon was high in the sky when the people gathered at the table in the bar decided it should probably be time for bed. Even though each of the strangers were weary beyond words, they had stayed up to greet and chat to all of the townspeople who had joined them, but the tall, slim, green gentleman just had to rest his head on the table for a moment.  
Before he knew it, his walrus friend was gently tapping his shoulder, and he stirred. Looking up, Smith found that everyone else had pretty much left, leaving just himself, his companions and Jensen - with Frankie asleep on his shoulder, and the dogs lying nearby - at the table. A few residents were still around, but they were stragglers who looked as though they never left their stools.  
"How long was I asleep for?" the suited young man asked groggily.  
"Nearly an hour. We didn't want to disturb you, but we're going to bed now, mate." Trott replied softly, watching his friend stretch his muscles back to life in order to make his way upstairs.  
"Sounds good to me," Smith mumbled, and the other two companions followed, as Jensen walked out of the saloon, carrying Frankie, sleepy dogs dragging behind. 

After a long lie-in, the three gentlemen came together at the same table in which they had sat the night before.  
“We’re going to have to do something for these people who have helped us, right?” Ross looked around at the kind, welcoming people of the town, and stopped when he came to Clyde. “Especially Clyde. We haven’t paid him for the food and beds.”  
Trott nodded slowly. “He said it’s fine, but,” the walrus-man paused, and pensively bit his bottom lip, staring at nothing.  
Smith had seen that look before, and it usually meant he didn’t want to hear the rest of his friend’s sentence, but it was always important. “What?” He prompted, in a wary tone.  
Trott then focused on Smith, lip still in his teeth. He didn’t like giving bad news. He took a big sigh before speaking, “Well, we don’t know where we are, how far home is, and quite frankly, we don’t know if we’ll ever be able to make it back.” During the conversations they had with residents, they found that no one could say where their home was, and as far as anyone knew, there was nothing but desert outside the town.  
Alsmiffy was, of course, the one to question aloud what the others were thinking, “Wait, doesn’t anyone go travelling, exploring, vacationing?”  
The people gathered at the table had all looked at each other, half-perplexed expressions on their faces. They had stated that only one person had ever left, and that was George, the old bar owner. And the nature of his departure was a dark subject.  
Smith went quiet after that, contemplating the idea that a town was full of residents who had never known anything else. He couldn’t understand it.  
Home was just a place where their furnace, items and beds were. They had lived in so many places, that while it was a gloomy concept - that they might not make it back - it wasn’t heartbreaking. They were together, despite their chances in the desert, and everyone in the town had been quick to help, and been full of kindness. They could just stay.  
Pausing to silently confirm that each of them were happy to stay for the meantime, the three gentlemen then smiled in unison.  
“We should go to see the mayor, and discuss it with him,” Trott suggested. It was a tight community. They couldn’t just move in, it would only be polite to ask first.

The trio strolled up through the town, towards the large farm on the outskirts. As they passed the wooden buildings, Ross started to stroke his beard, the way he did when he would be thinking.  
“What are you thinking?” asked Trott, noticing the mannerism.  
Ross let a low-pitched hum accompany a long sigh. “I’m thinking,” he started, “that I need a change of clothes.” He looked down at himself. “I’d like to keep the suit for as long as I can - it cost me a lot of money - and I don’t think it will last very long in this environment.”  
Smith copied Ross, and looked down at his suit. He murmured agreement, and the two taller gentlemen looked at each other.  
“Does this mean clothes shopping?” Trott anticipated, breathy and high-pitched. Ross shrugged in reply, with an amused grin.  
“We can’t pay,” Smith reminded them.  
“Well, now!” a booming voice came from behind them, making Trottimus and Ross hold on to each other briefly. Alsmiffy placed his hands on his hips, and frowned.  
A large, well-presented middle-aged man presented himself by swinging around to stand in front of them. “Don’t think I haven’t heard about you folks in town, and that you didn’t bring nothing with you,” he continued, “I’d be happy to give you some clothes, just until you can repay me, sure.” He smiled toothily, and the three friends relaxed their stances.  
“We couldn’t do that,” Ross began, but Smith stepped forward, only standing an inch or so taller than the kind shopkeeper.  
“But, if you insist,” his eyes twinkled, and he heard Ross tut, quietly.  
“Of course I insist!” The man said, gleefully opening his arms, then gesturing them to the door of his shop.  
There wasn’t much to choose from - dyes were hard to come by - but the clothes they found were far more comfortable in the heat and dust, and they appeared far less likely to attract attention, fitting in with the people walking around the town.  
Ever the most dapper, Alsmiffy had picked a long, flattering brown jacket, and it fitted charmingly. He was smoothing the suede with his fingertips, a smug look on his face, and Ross looked irritated.  
“You are such a bastard sometimes, it would have been nice to say no.”  
Smith’s superior expression looked down on his friend. “Mate, I am not waiting until we have decent cash to change out of my favourite suit. My shoes were already getting damaged. We’ll pay him back.”  
“How long will it take you to pay him back for that jacket? It looks pretty expensive.” Trott looked the impressive brown coat up and down.  
“I have to have some style, Trott. You know that.” Smith smiled his best winning smile, and the other two knew there would be no arguing. They shook their heads together, and motioned to carry on up the road to Hobie’s farm.

When the three men made it to the farm, Hobie’s son Robin was sitting on the porch of the house, taking a break from his farm work. He stood to greet them, with a smile.  
“Hello, fellas. How are you doing today? I hope you rested well.”  
After speaking to Robin about potentially staying in the small town, he looked thoughtful.  
“Well, we are happy to have you living here, of course. But you’re right about paying your way. We all have a part to play in this town, and we all help each other.”  
Trott spotted a disgruntled look on Smith’s face out of the corner of his eye, and he shot his most disapproving look at him. Smith almost protested, but Trott stopped it. “I was thinking we could help out on your farm, if you have jobs for us?”  
Robin looked hesitant. “Well, I don’t think there are enough jobs for you to do, really. This place runs itself. The mine always needs manpower though. Maybe help out there?” Trott had forgotten about the mine. He recalled Frankie and Hobie’s confusion at his questioning of where gold from the mine ends up, and his curiosity was set alight.  
“Oh, I like mining,” Ross said, happily.  
“We could definitely do that,” Trott agreed, and Smith nodded.  
“Excellent. And I’m really glad you want to stay here. Do you fellas want some food? I was just about to cook for me and my pa.”  
With thanks, the three friends followed Robin into the house, but not before Smith finally got the word in he had wanted to.  
“This guy is really cheesy. It’s like he’s reading a script or something.”  
“Shut it, Smith.”  
As Alsmiffy whipped up a batch of stew, Trottimus grilled the steaks, and Robin prepared the fire, Ross laid the table. He worked slowly, observing the cosy room as he walked around it. There were two padded chairs by the fireplace, draped with blankets for when night fell. There was a table in between them, no doubt for placing drinks and table games on, and a large, woven rug sat underneath. To the left of the fireplace was a small bookshelf, which was rather bare. Once the table was ready, Ross walked over and looked at the small collection. One book caught his eye, but he couldn’t say why.  
Picking it up and opening it, he began to read. There didn’t seem to be a title, author or any other notes to it, it just went straight into a story.  
Ross’ mouth became drier and drier as he read, and his heart began to beat fast. The story described three companions, waking up in a strange land, separated from each other. One had been found by the mayor of a town, and the other two had come together before being found by the other, who was accompanied by a member of the town and his daughter.  
Not only was the story eerily similar, but details were reflected. It was set in a desert, in a small town, and the story seemed to end at the three characters going to bed late, after meeting members of the community in the saloon bar. The tallest one fell asleep at the table.  
Staring at the last line, which read: ‘They marched slowly up the stairs, tallest one first, shortest last, to comfortable beds and deep sleep,’ Ross tried to grasp hold of anything which felt like reality. He turned the book over in his hands. If felt heavy, dusty, and he could smell the paper. It was definitely real. He gripped onto the back of the padded chair to his right, and turned slowly to look at Robin.  
The clean-shaven, middle-aged man was stoking the fire expertly, with no expression on his face. He’d fixed up the fireplace every day since he was a boy, of course. It wasn’t even a chore anymore, just something that happened at some point during the day.  
“Robin?” Ross’ dry throat caught any tone of voice he may have tried to express. It sounded like dust.  
Robin turned and faced the bearded man, his expression changing immediately to concern. “What is it?” he asked.  
Ross had cleared his throat, in order for his words to have emphasis. “This book,” he held out the brown bound pages slowly, “what is it?”  
Robin frowned, and took the book to look over it himself. He turned the pages, and read a little. His frown deepened. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen it before in my life.” His breathy disbelief scared Ross even more. There was something more than themselves at work here, and he didn’t like it. He suddenly missed home.  
“Smith! Trott!” He called, eagerly.  
His friends had recognised the tone of voice, and immediately bundled into the room from the kitchen.  
They read the story together, looking up to pointedly show their confusion now and again.  
“I know! I know! What the heck is this?” Ross was speaking in his hushed, high-pitched tone of fear.  
Trott calmed the situation, as he so very often did, “It’s a bit weird, but it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a story.”  
“That’s the same as our story!” Ross continued to say what Trott was thinking.  
Smith was doing his usual thing when something unknown was going on; he paced the room slowly, silently, and chewed the side of his mouth, brows meeting in the middle. Every now and then he would blink and look up, opening his mouth to say something, but would be distracted by another thought soon after, and go back to pacing, letting the other two argue loudly.  
“It’s just a book, Ross. Okay, so Robin hasn’t seen it before, maybe Hobie picked it up recently.”  
“But it’s got us in it!”  
“It doesn’t say that, it’s just a bit similar.”  
Ross was on edge, but he knew there was no point in worrying about it until there was something to really worry about. He looked at the friendly, soft expression on the walrus’ face, then to his tall, green friend, who shrugged his shoulders and half smiled, then to Robin, who looked a little uncomfortable.  
“Right,” Ross began, “Let’s come back to that if we need to.” The book was placed back on the shelf, and they served the food, just as the mayor strolled in through the front door, bouncing elegantly in his steps.  
The evening was coming to an end, and the three friends prepared to head out, back to Clyde’s.  
“Oh, Mayor Hobie, one more thing,” Smith turned from his standing position at the door, “that book,” he pointed out the object in question, “did you acquire it recently?”  
Trott and Ross laughed quietly at Smith’s showmanship. He did like to play characters now and then. As Hobie answered, the tall, green man stroked the moustache he seemed to have begun growing.  
Hobie looked at the book, and smiled warmly. “Why, yes!” He exclaimed, jubilant at their discovery. “I got it this morning, and brought it home when I came back for lunch. It made me smile some, because it has an uncanny resemblance to your fellas’ arrival. I take it you read it, and that’s why y’all asking me about it?”  
None of the people in the room had expected that, but then they didn’t know what they had expected. Relief and satisfying understanding came over them, and they smiled back at the mayor.  
“It freaked us all out, definitely,” Ross stated, then he laughed. “Well, that’s that. Thank you for a lovely evening Mayor, Robin.”  
“Nice hats!” Trott burst, as he spotted the row of hats lined up beside the door. They were very similar to the hat which Jensen wore.  
“Take one, if you want,” Robin offered, seemingly not bothered.  
The walrus’ eyes opened in disbelief. Picking an impressive black one, he asked, “Are you sure?”  
Robin reassured him with an enthusiastic nod. “A man needs a hat, sure.”  
With grateful thanks, Trott followed his friends back to Clyde’s, wearing the hat with pride.

The mine was hard work, but the people there made time for jokes, breaks and making sure that everyone was doing a good job of the tasks they had been given. Whilst tapping into a lapis vein, Trott decided to try and learn a little more about the mystery surrounding gold. A fairly young woman called Violet was working next to him, and they had been chatting a little.  
“So, how often do you tend to find gold?” the walrus asked, to start the ball rolling, as it were.  
“I guess I can usually find a little bit every few days, but sometimes you can just hit the jackpot, you know?” Trott nodded, well practiced in mining, of course. “But that doesn’t happen very often. And it’s usually in a dangerous spot.” He nodded again, aware of the dangers lying under the first few layers of the land. “When you get that shit, though!” Violet’s exclamation made them both laugh. "If you get a good haul, you send it off with the rest, singin' and dancin', then you get free dinner, drinks and first stakes in a huge poker game at one of the bars."  
"Sounds fair to me!" Trottimus replied. He then pushed to find out more: minecarts lined up on rails at specific points in the mine, collecting the gold. They would travel deeper into the rock, and disappear into darkness. There was no light after a certain point, making the walrus wonder about monsters, but not as much as the direction intrigued him. Why would the gold be carried deeper into the earth? Where did it end up? All other ores were put together into carts which would travel the opposite way, out into the sunlight, to be sorted through, and used by the townspeople in their daily lives.  
They would trade crafts and ores between each other, rather than having a currency, and it seemed to work very well in the small community. Knowing Smith's penchant for wander off-track to find the items he wanted, Trott knew that it wouldn't be too hard for him to pay off his jacket.  
"So, how far do you think the rails go?" the young walrus-man enquired.  
Violet looked a little alarmed at first, but softened her expression before replying, "I wonder about you, you know. You ask such strange questions. Are you a spy or somethin'?"  
Trott stopped what he was doing, and picked his words carefully. "We're from somewhere very far away, Violet. Whatever happens to your gold does not happen to our gold. We get to do what we want with our gold." He looked sincerely at the woman, who was more than a little shocked. Honesty always seemed to work best in this sort of situation, he had found in his years of exploration and travelling. It wasn’t condescending in any way, and Violet’s shock became a simple, endearing confusion.  
“I don’t understand,” she said, frankly. “We were told that all the gold goes to the same place; that the rails travel a long, long way through the world, through lands we can’t even imagine, and meet up with rails from all over, somewhere in the middle.”  
Trottimus refrained his frustration; he could have gone off on a huge rant about how ridiculous it all sounded, but he remembered that the people here had never known anything else, this was their truth. He couldn’t be angry at that. “Why? Why does it meet in the middle?”  
Violet struggled with the concept of questioning why, and pursed her lips before replying, “Because it has to. Something bad will happen if it doesn’t.” The statement didn’t sound solid, it trailed off into uncertainty. It was clear that Violet had never thought about wondering what the “bad thing” might actually be. Trott guessed that no one really had. It helped him decide that he was not ready to be a preacher, a revolutionary, or a liberator, at least until he had found out more of the truth.

When the three friends caught up with each other in the middle of the afternoon, on the walk back to the town, and their pockets finally containing things of worth, Trottimus relayed what he had learned from Violet.  
“Guys, we need to find out what is going on here. I feel like it’s something bigger than us.”  
Smith took a sideways glance at his friend Ross, who had spoken, and raised an eyebrow, to suggest that he thought the dark-haired gentleman was over-reacting.  
Ross saw the expression, and defended his words. “Come on, the book last night, the strange town where no one ever goes anywhere or questions anything?” The others didn’t reply, so Ross continued, “Fuck, how did we even get here? What happened?”  
The walrus’ whiskers twitched anxiously, and the green man’s arms crossed his body. They didn’t have any answers.  
“Fine, we can get in the minecarts, ride the rails,” Alsmiffy’s eyes shone brighter and brighter, as his sentence went on, memories of thrilling mine cart rides in the front of his mind, and the prospect of jumping into the unknown sparking his excitement. It had been a while, after all. He stroked his moustache again.  
Trottimus laughed, and Alsmiffy shot a questioning look. “It’s hard to take you seriously with that caterpillar on your face, mate, but I think that’s a good idea.” Smith was disgruntled, and it only made it funnier for the other two. However, they quickly calmed the laughter when they remembered the importance of their task.  
“I think we should do it in secret though,” Trott stated. Explaining that it would be better to know the truth in full, but that the townspeople probably wouldn’t allow them to do it, the other two agreed. Revolutions never start without enough evidence for people to believe that life will be better on the other side, but that definitely wasn’t the case here. Everyone was comfortable with their routine, and the three young travellers agreed that it was not their place to disrupt that stability.  
“Yet, anyway,” Smith smiled. “If we find some gold-hoarding, evil bastard at the end of the line, I am kicking off, mate.”  
His friends laughed. “Fair enough!” Trottimus exclaimed.  
"Does this mean we have to do some dastardly scheme to infiltrate the mine at night?" Smith continued, his craving for sleuthing now wide awake.  
Trott pondered, his wrinkles deepening. Ross inhaled to speak, and his companions looked to him.  
“They have people posted there during the night. Since the bandit thing.” Trottimus’s expression was quizzical. “I have been talking too, Trott,” Ross concluded.  
Smith was thinking again, and that required effort, so he was quiet. As they strolled back to the bar, Trott and Ross debating how they should approach the problem, his eyes were caught by the giant handpainted banner, which stretched across the whole road. He blinked a few times, registering the words written above his head.  
“Guys, couldn’t we do it on the night of the dance? Everyone’s going to be there, right?”  
The annual fair and dance seemed to be the highlight of the residents’ year, considering how people would talk about it.  
“Smith, if you were a bandit, what better time to consider raiding a gold mine? They are still going to have people posted there.” Ross said, complacently.  
“But, if we offer to be the ones posted there that night,” Smith raised his eyebrows with glee, and Trott smiled, mischievously.  
“Then everyone else can go to the dance. We’ll be the good guys, and have free entry to the mine. Smith, you have just reminded me of your purpose in our trio.”  
Smith snorted indignantly at the walrus, but was feeling rather pleased with himself.

The evening entertainment had already started when the three friends reached Clyde’s. The people they recognised were pleased to see them, and handed drinks over, whilst opening arms to pat them on the back, or hug them.  
After a little confusion, Frankie explained that since the three men had decided to stay, and they seemed to get on brilliantly at their first day of work, a celebration was in order. The band kicked off, causing Smith to instantly become enthralled, tapping his feet and watching the instrumentalists play expertly, and Jensen started dealing playing cards out to a table full of players.  
“You guys want in?” he asked. Smith shook his head, and walked over to the small group who had already begun dancing. However, Trott pulled the rim on his hat down on one side, grabbed a cigar from Clyde, who was offering them - he said a swift but genuine thank you, ever polite - and took one of the empty seats, apparently already wearing his poker face.  
Ross had watched the embarrassing event unfold, with slight befuddlement, before joining him at the table.  
“Can I have a cigar?” He asked Clyde, after seeing how well the walrus seemed to fit in with the other people at the table. It was like he was playing a character in a storybook, and it looked like fun.  
After accepting a cigar, Ross hunched his shoulders and adopted his own expression; one eye a little squinted, and mean-looking. He would find himself losing the demeanour now and again, and consciously have to bring it back, to keep up with Trott’s rather brilliant fake attributes, which incidentally seemed to be helping him win.  
A puffed out Smith soon sat at Trott’s other side, flushed, and eyes sparkling with life. He hadn’t realised how much he had missed music, even if it had only been a few days since he was changing the discs in his jukebox at home. He’d meant to learn an instrument for most of his life, but things simply got in the way. Maybe there was an opportunity to start here. The music which the band were playing was like nothing he’d heard before, it was full of soul, fun and amazingly emotional chord progressions. He had fallen in love with it.  
Smith was soon dealt his own hand of cards, and handed a cigar. The band took a break, and he finally concentrated on the game.  
Poker turned serious the more people got into it, and the drinks flowed steadily. Trottimus wondered how much he’d had to drink since arriving in the town, but it seemed to be a part of everyday life. He found himself starting to lose the valuables he’d betted with, and decided it was time to leave the table. Smith chastised him for leaving so early, but Trott expected nothing less.  


The walrus stumbled slightly out of the chair, and wandered around the bar, offering to pay back what he owed to the people who had helped. After some contention, the kind shopkeeper and bar owner accepted the payments, and Trott felt much happier knowing he didn’t owe anyone. He smiled to himself and stood at the bar to hazily admire the scene before him: friends at the table, looking like they had been sitting there for years, new friends talking, laughing and singing loudly, Clyde mopping up spilled liquids, a constant smile in his eyes, and that smell which he had become acquainted to, but he hadn’t recognised at first. It was the smell of dusty earth, animals and alcohol. Trott had noticed that the people used the same bottles of liquor for cleaning as they did for drinking. He even allowed himself a drunken chuckle, and was happy to call this place home.  
Ross was the next to give up on the poker game, after losing a little more than he had intended, as seemed to be his way, and he was caught by one one of the men he had worked with during the day. He introduced his wife, and they spoke at length about the three travellers’ origins, seemingly fascinated. With pride, Ross told of the various lush, and fantastic lands they had visited over the years. The couple listened in awe, until it was time for them to get more drinks from the bar. Asking if the bearded man wanted a drink for himself, he declined and stated it was time for him to turn in. The alcohol was tingling in his limbs, and it had only accentuated tiredness. Saying goodnight to his friends, he wandered up the stairs and to his room.  
The window had been left open through the day, so it was pleasantly cool inside, and Ross sat on the bed to take off his boots. Stretching, and about to get undressed, his attention was suddenly drawn to the small bookshelf sitting to the right of the door. One solitary book sat on the middle shelf, and Ross was sure he hadn’t noticed it there before. He pensively pulled it towards him. Bound in a dark green, nothing was written on the cover, and no title page existed. It simply went straight into the story.  
‘The inexperienced young man’s hands trembled as he pulled a feathered  
arrow from its sheath. However, he was simply too slow. He could only watch  
in horror as the villainous bandit shot a precise arrow at the mayor. A terrible  
cry came from the old man, and he collapsed onto his knees.  
The entire town gasped in heartbreak, and Mayor fell further, lifelessly, to the  
dirty earth.’  
Ross’ breath was shallow, and his heart was beating fast. It was the same feeling as he’d had whilst reading the book at Hobie’s house. Hobie. Mayor Hobie. The dark-haired gentleman shook his head. There was definitely something odd going on, but nothing could predict the future. He was troubled, and no longer tired, but wasn’t sure what any of it meant.  
Ross lay on his bed, and speculated on the horrible, uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.  
He was only dozing, when a piercing sound of shattered glass shook him straight out of bed. He listened for a few moments, guessing that someone had simply dropped a bottle, possibly. However, the people downstairs were distressed. Then silence, apart from one, low-pitched, angry voice.  
“Anyone upstairs, you better make yourselves known right now!” The voice bellowed.  
Ross pondered putting on his boots again, before realising how silly it seemed. He composed himself, and went to the door.  
From the balcony, he could see three men and a woman, dressed as though from a dream, in leathers, fine hats and scarves, and loaded with tools. Two of the men and the woman were holding angry townspeople back, threatening with swords and bows, and the last man stared straight at Ross, hands on hips, and a most disdainful look on his face. Ross knew who these men were. Bandits. He felt sick, but kept his cool under the leader’s gaze.  
They stared each other out for a minute or two before the bandit spoke, “You wanna come down here with us, boy?” Neither man’s stance changed.  
“Not really,” Ross replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.  
“Come down.” The tone chilled the tall, bearded man to the bone, and he slowly descended the stairs, trying not to show any fear on his face, each still staring at the other.  
Thankfully, he found Smith, and stood beside him. Their eyes met stealthily - as the leader turned away finally - to judge the other was ok. Ross saw Smith’s eyes move to show where Trott was; standing at the front of the small crowd, utterly fuming.  
The sick feeling came back into Ross’ throat, and he pictured the words in the book. Where was the mayor? His question was answered quickly, an older bandit coming through the saloon doors, Hobie following behind, and a young woman at his heels, holding a hefty pickaxe in her hands. The mayor looked calm, and composed in the situation.  
Ross was desperate to try and do something, recalling the end of the story, but he then remembered the part previous. He looked around for the young man with a bow and arrow, but no one was armed in the bar.  
The doors and windows were closed too, so there wasn’t a chance of a hero being outside somewhere. Ross felt helpless, confused and angry. Smith must have sensed it. He placed a soothing hand on his friend’s shoulder, which seemed to help.  
“Where’s the gold, Hobie?” The leader suddenly roared.  
“You know exactly where it is, Eros. It’s gone.” Hobie held his hands together at his front, and lifted his head to try and intimidate the bandit.  
Eros rolled his tongue inside his mouth, and tutted, aggressively. “Bullshit,” he replied. “You don’t send it down them rails for three days. You gotta turn it to bars before it goes. Right George?” Eros turned to the older man who had led Hobie through the door.  
“Right,” George confirmed, gravelly, and full of spite.  
There was a pause of deathly silence before the mayor’s tone of voice suddenly became alarmingly venomous, “Not since you left, George. Now, we send it all straight away. You and your friends saw to that for us.”  
George was aghast, and Eros eyed him furiously. “George, have you ruined this for us? Was I wrong to let you live?” Eros had quickly become more dangerous than any creeper the three adventurers had ever come across before, and George was positively shaking.  
“They got other stuff that’s valuable, Eros. They got metals, lapis, diamonds even.”  
Eros’ tongue traced his teeth again. “Well then, something like that will substitute. Hobie?”  
All of a sudden, someone moved forward, and both Smith and Ross muttered “No!” in unison.  
Trottimus sized Eros up, ignoring the female bandit who had tightened the bow further, aimed at the walrus’ head. Eros turned to look at Trott, curiously.  
“What do you even want with valuable ores? What can you do with them?”  
“And who might this be? A new face? Why should you care, son? Just give us what we need, and we will leave you alone.” Eros nodded to the woman, who slightly lowered and loosened the bow.  
The walrus thought about what he wanted to say first, and went with it anyway. “No.” Eros was surprised. “You need to leave, and find some other way to get your kicks, or whatever this is.”  
“You have no idea what this is about, son.” There was a tone of real warning weaved into Eros’ reply, and it made Trott waver a little. Instead of backing down however, the anger welled again.  
“I would defend this place to my death!” He burst.  
Eros smiled, wickedly. “Can we test that?” He chuckled.  
“You bet your fucking arse, you piece of shit!” His friends pushed through the crowd, crying his name, and begging him to calm down, but he stood his ground.  
“Tomorrow, just before sundown. Outside here.” Eros confirmed, sternly, and motioned for his party to leave swiftly.  
The walrus-man stood in stunned silence, contemplating the trouble he’d managed to put himself in, and regretting it deeply.

“Here,” Mayor Hobie passed Trottimus a finely crafted bow, and a distinguished quiver of arrows, made from dark leather. The objects felt old, but not delicate, and Trott asked where they were from.  
“They were my great-grandfather’s. He founded the town, and once things were settled here, no one had to really use these. They have been passed down the family.”  
The walrus’ hands were unsure. “I can’t use this, Mayor.”  
“I want you to use them, Trottimus. I insist.”  
Trott accepted the gifts, humbly.  
Himself, Hobie, Robin, Jensen, Frankie, Ross and Smith were just outside town, in a clearing usually used to graze sheep in the spring, but they had been moved to more sheltered accommodation for the cool nights of the winter season. Of what winter there was.  
Smith had tasked himself with teaching the walrus what technique and precision he could, given that he was the most skilled, and the hours from crack of dawn to sundown would be spent practicing.  
A "showdown" with bandits meant that both parties would face each other, quite a distance apart, and fire arrows, intending to wound. Whoever gave up - or died - first would lose, and the opposer would get his demand seen through.  
"Can't you just dodge the arrows?" Ross asked, bewildered by the idea of settling arguments with bows and arrows.  
"That's the plan," Jensen replied, "but the other person's plan is to be quick enough to prevent the dodge, or to outwit them altogether."  
Jensen's words sent a shiver through the dark-haired man. He had been trying to find the right time to bring up what he had read in the book which he’d found on his shelf. In fact, the bound pages were in his possession, but how would he find a “right” time? His friends had told him he was overreacting anyway, so suggesting that a book was about to predict the future would no doubt cause them to laugh in his face. But what if it was true?  
Smith stood behind Trott, guiding his sight, explaining how much wind resistance he needed to take into account, and the others looked on, solemn, but hopeful at the same time. Ross could only look nervously, between his best friend, struggling with the practice, and the mayor, who seemed the most relaxed of all of them.  
Hobie turned to prepare some watermelon for everyone, and Ross saw his chance. He walked over to the old man, and placed a hand on his shoulder. Hobie turned, overcome by the emotion behind the touch, and looked at the bearded-man’s face. His mouth was open, ready to speak, his eyes wide, full of concern and readiness to help.  
Ross saw the perplexed look on the mayor’s face, and took a deep breath. “Mayor, I have a really terrible feeling about this showdown. I want you to take precautions, in case you are hurt.”  
Hobie paused for a moment, clearly alarmed, but then he brushed it off. “Me? Why would I get hurt? What about your friend?”  
Ross took the man by the other shoulder, and faced him, pleading. “Hobie, please. Eros is going to kill you. He’s going to shoot you. Just take measures to stop that from happening.”  
The old man’s steel grey eyes looked between the young man’s deep blue ones, and he sincerely replied, “Okay, son.” Ross let Hobie go, and regained composure. He smiled thanks, before helping to hand out the slices of melon.  
“What was that about?” The walrus asked, munching the refreshing fruit. The others had given them space, unquestioning. Even if the three companions would be staying for an a long time, they still found it hard to be themselves around the townspeople. They each felt as if they didn’t quite belong, despite the welcome they had received.  
Ross wasn’t sure what to tell his friend; whether the truth would scare him too much, but he told himself he had little choice. Pulling the book out for his friends to read, he gauged their reactions.  
Trott’s lips pursed, and Smith’s eyebrows did their usual concerned meet-in-the-middle. It was the tall, green man who spoke first.  
“I can do it for you, Trott. I’ll shoot instead.” He observed the stunned expression on Ross’ face - he was sure they’d laugh it off - and continued, “There is something odd going on, and I don’t want to take any chances on someone we care about getting hurt, let alone killed. Okay he’s going to armour himself, but there’s still a chance.  
I don’t want to believe in this shit, but I’m feeling more and more like we need to see what is in that mine. It’s getting to me.”  
Ross looked to Trott, knowing how happy he was here. The walrus’ head was hanging heavily. The bearded man empathetically squeezed the top of his friend’s arm.  
“It will be okay, Trott. Smith can win this thing, we’ll be safe again, then see what is really going on here.”  
There was a pause, and Trott found he couldn’t lift his head. It took some strength to state how he was feeling. “I just didn’t want to be on another crazy adventure yet. I was enjoying being home, and I guess I was trying so hard to make this whole mess into something comfortable and good. But I don’t think it is good. I feel sick to my stomach not knowing the truth. And I want to go home.” He finally lifted his head, and saw nothing but understanding and agreement in the eyes of his best friends.  
It was hard to watch the walrus shout out in frustration, and walk away from the group, kicking at the dust, when he was told that no one could take his place, according to “showdown” rules. The others simply let him have a moment alone, and he returned, saying that it was time to start practicing again. He didn’t know how to react when Frankie hurried over to him, and hugged him as close to her as she could. All Trott could do was hug her back, but he was grateful for the warm, hopeful feeling it gave him.  
However, he didn’t seem to be getting any better. As the day turned to afternoon, and everyone was clearly tired, it was hard to find the motivation to keep trying.  
“It’s like we need a miracle, or something,” Smith mumbled, glumly. He looked towards Ross. “Come on mate, haven’t you found a story where everything goes in slow-motion, and the walrus sort of does a spin, and just nails the guy, in one shot?” There was a vaguely sarcastic half-smile upon the slim man’s face, and Ross snorted.  
“Crack some more jokes, please Smith. It’s distracting me from the unbearable fear,” Trott was holding his arms across his body, unable to really look anyone in the eye.  
Ross could stand it no more. He bent down, squeezed his arms around his friend and stated for everyone to hear, “I am not going to let you get hurt. I won’t let it happen.”  
Tears stung Smith’s blue eyes as Trott looked at him over Ross’ shoulder. The tall man shook his head. “Never,” he agreed.  
The walrus could only breathe “thank you,” and pulled away from his friend. He shook himself, to be rid of the sadness. He believed them with every fibre of his being, and went back to target practice, confidence significantly boosted. It seemed to work to some extent. More of the targets were hit than before, but his timing and consistency were still lacking in order to do the job.  
“I may need a miracle,” Trott croaked, a weary smile spreading over his face, as the party headed towards the town, the sun disappearing ahead of them.

There was a heated debate between Jensen and Frankie about whether she was allowed to stay and watch the showdown. The young girl turned to the walrus, angry tears rolling down her cheeks. Her face smoothed into the sweetest smile, and Trott had to fight back his own distress.  
“You’ll be fine,” Frankie said, tenderly. There was a deep earnestness behind her eyes, as if she knew her words to be fact, but it only unnerved the walrus. She hugged him again, and walked gravely towards her house, not looking back.  
The villagers had come to watch, but no one was speaking. Everything had been said, either with or without words, and Trottimus could only hear the soft breeze around his ears, carrying the sound of horses hooves, as Eros and his bandits approached the town.  
Trott watched the adversary tie up his horse, and his friends did the same. None of them were talking either, and they lined up as spectators, distinctly separate from anyone else. Eros was doing his best to stare the walrus down, but the sight of him had reignited the angry fire in Trott’s head. He knew he couldn’t kill this man, but he wanted to. His intention was to wound Eros enough, and the town could decide what they wanted to do with him, one way or the other. Trott stared right back.  
“So,” Eros roared from the other end of the road, “you’ve got the balls to see this through? I admire that.”  
“This guy is such a fucking cliche I can’t stand it,” Smith snarled. He was ready to pounce at any given moment, to one side of the road. Ross was the other side, just as poised. They had armoured their friend as best they could, but Eros had clearly done the same.  
The showdown had potential to last a long while, but Trott’s friends had already agreed to take advantage of their agility, and push the walrus out of the way if an arrow would be fatal. They could forfeit the showdown, and no one would have to die.  
“I’m pretty sure it will be against the rules, but screw it. If we need to run, we run.” Ross said, when he and Smith had schemed just before Eros arrived. They had enough supplies to last a few days. With a solid plan in place, they were ready.  
Trottimus didn’t reply to the man he was facing. Too much anger and fear inside meant that anything he did say would come out garbled, and he knew it. His face was numb, his insides were numb. The walrus wondered if he could even make a sound, let alone a witty comeback.  
However, he stood firm, gripping the bow with intent, and kept his features calm, not letting his emotions show.  
Eros laughed, and it sent a shiver of terror down Trott’s back. He dared to glance one way, then the next. Both Smith and Ross nodded encouragingly to him, and he could see how ready they were. Probably more ready than he was.  
“Draw, boy!” Eros bellowed, and before Trott had time to even reach behind him to the quiver of arrows, Eros had shot at him.  
“Left!” Trottimus’ friends shouted in unison. The arrow bounced beside Trott’s right foot, as he dodged to the left. It landed another six or so feet behind him, showing the force at which the bandit leader had shot.  
The poor man’s body was shaking, but he reached to pull an arrow, and rather skillfully lined it up before Eros had a chance to do the same. However, the direction was well off, and the arrow went rather wide, and into one of the shop’s walls.  
The opposers laughed together, and the leader lowered his arms, in a show of fearlessness. Trott shamefully hugged the bow to his chest, ready for the lashing.  
“What are you even doing here, boy? You get your friends to do your dodging for you, and you can’t aim for shit. Just give up, and I don’t have to kill-”  
Eros’ words were cut chillingly short, as an arrow landed with a thud, into an exposed part of his arm. Every spectator spinned their heads to stare at Trott, who had not moved. He was still standing, holding the bow close, and head hung. He stared at Eros, mouth open, and eyes wide.  
The bandit was winded, so could only look up, disbelieving, at the direction which the arrow had come from. Trott saw this, and followed the wounded man’s gaze; up and towards a rooftop behind him, where Frankie stood, her poncho billowing like a cape in the breeze. She had taken off her hat, and her short, brown hair flowed. She looked older than her years, and her face was full of turmoil. A bow was gripped easily in her hand. An astonished hush surged over everyone, including the bandits.  
It was Ross who heard the movement back at where Eros was standing. He turned to see the bandit leader holding his pierced shoulder. It was clear he had lost use of his arm. He was hissing towards one of the women in his group. He looked more livid than any monster, and Ross’ heart beat even faster than it had been.  
The woman moved forwards, a fixed look on her face, towards Mayor Hobie, who was as distracted as everyone else.  
“No!” Ross tried to act, and grabbed the bow from his friend. However, before he could even place a finger on a feather, the woman had shot and hit the mayor in his back. Hobie cried out in pain, and he clutched at his son. It took a moment for Robin to realise what had happened, but once he had, he screamed.  
The old man fell to his knees, into Robin’s arms, and Ross felt hot, stinging tears fall over his face, as utter chaos erupted around him. He could only focus on Hobie, around ten feet in front of him, on the porch of one of the bars, dying, with his son hysterically grasping hold of him.  
Ross suddenly felt the weight of the book on himself. It had been about him the whole time, not Trott, and the bandit taking the shot wasn’t Eros. Life’s unfairness dragged the bearded man’s heart even further down.  
Lots of people were desperately trying to find bows and other weapons at which to chase the bandits with, as they were heading off on their horses. Others were crying or screaming, either out of anger or anguish.  
Trott could only look between the things going on, still standing in the middle of the road, and utterly helpless. Smith rushed to scoop him up, and lead him over to their other friend, Ross, who was sobbing, a hand over his forehead, wishing all of this was a dream.

“It’s my fault. I should have tried harder.” Ross’ hair was even more wild, as he had run his fingers through it so much, in frustration and bitter sadness. His tall, green friend was holding his shoulder tightly, in a vain attempt at support. Nothing could make this ok, and it was hard to feel any comfort.  
“It was his choice not to take your advice, Ross.” Trott’s voice was as deep as ever, and wobbly with his own sorrow. He was standing a few metres from where his friends were sitting, at the edge of town, on a bench near the graveyard. It was the furthest they could get from everyone, without looking like they were running away, or ashamed. Even if they felt it. “I should be the one to blame. If I hadn’t challenged that bastard, then none of this would have happened.” He looked over the bow in his hands, tracing the fine craftsmanship and mourning the loss of its legacy. Robin probably wouldn’t want it back.  
“Neither of you should blame yourselves,” Smith’s husky voice was faint. “Eros was out for blood. Even last night. There was no way he was leaving without Hobie dead.”  
“Smith!” Trott scolded his friend’s choice of words, and for once the tall man didn’t object.  
“Sorry. I’m sorry.”  
Trott looked at the remorse, and felt guilty. “It’s okay, I want to say that you are right, but I can’t help feeling like things could have been sorted without fighting.” He couldn’t stop the deep sigh which overtook his body, and quivered his lip. He fought back sobs, but tears appeared in his eyes. Blinking them out, the shape of a person came into view. It was Jensen. Trott quickly wiped away his tears, and attempted to stand strong. Jensen looked just as bereft, and ashen as he approached.  
The walrus was concerned, and asked, “What is it?”  
With a deep breath, Jensen replied, “I can’t get anything from Frankie, she won’t talk. She’s just sittin’ there, starin’ at nothin’. You gotta help me.”  
Trott turned to his companions, who both stood immediately, and they followed Jensen back to his house. Walking through the town was difficult. All eyes were on the outsiders, and even if no one heckled, rather looked consolingly towards them, Trott couldn’t help imagining that they were accusing, and wishing them gone.

Frankie was sitting on a rug and staring at the fire in the main room of the house, hugging her knees to her chest, and resting her chin. She was in stark contrast to earlier, looking tired, and childlike. The small girl’s face and bare forearms reflected the orange flames, not one blemish on her, but her bloodshot eyes were full of things beyond a mere twelve years old.  
“Frankie?” Trott stepped forward. The girl’s eyebrows twitched in reaction, but nothing else moved. “Frankie, what’s wrong?”  
The flames danced in Frankie’s brown eyes, and it was clear she was in shock. Trott knelt beside her, and attempted to comfort her.  
“We are all sad about Mayor Hobie, but we have to be strong for him, and get things back to normal.” There was a twitch in Frankie’s features, and Trott pushed a little further, “Things still need to carry on. We can all miss him, and cry when we need to, but you can’t sit and stare at the fire forever. How about some rest?”  
The twitch returned a couple of times, but it didn’t look like a good twitch. Frankie’s eyebrows met in the middle, furiously, and her eyes welled up.  
“It’s my fault, you asshole! I killed him!” Frankie leapt up from her seating position, and looked at the shocked men’s faces. “I made that son of a bitch do what he did. Hobie is dead, and I wish it had been me!” She wept, and sank once more to the ground, on her knees, burying her face.  
Any guilt which any of the rest of the room were feeling was suddenly gone. There was only concern for the girl crying on the floor. It is easy to blame yourself for a while, but things easily move on. However, for a child, those emotions are too strong to forget. Frankie was simply too young to deal with the pressure of blaming herself for Hobie’s death.  
Trott looked at Jensen, but the man looked helpless. He pleaded with his eyes, and Trott nodded. He shuffled over to Frankie, and placed a hand on her back, soothing her sobs until she sat up again, accepting Smith’s handkerchief to wipe her face.  
Trott’s hand moved to Frankie’s shoulder, and he looked into her eyes. “You saved me, Frankie. That man was going to kill Hobie one way or the other, and if you hadn’t done what you did, I’d probably be dead too.”  
Frankie’s erratic breaths calmed, and she swallowed, closing her eyes. “I know. I just can’t help thinking-” She couldn’t finish the sentence.  
“I know,” Trottimus replied. “I feel the same. If I hadn’t have done the stupid challenge; but, we can’t blame ourselves or others. It was nobody’s fault, other than Eros and the person who pulled the string of the bow.”  
Frankie nodded, a grateful, yet sad half smile on her face. Her hazel eyes regained a bit more of their light, and the friends hugged.  
“I want to go and see if Robin’s ok,” Frankie said, turning to her father.  
He was unsure, “Maybe we should leave it until the morning, Frankie. He might be resting.” the others knew this wouldn’t be true, that he would be at the small jail, interrogating the three bandits captured on their flight out of the town, but it seemed to satisfy Frankie.  
“Okay, maybe I will just go to bed,” she said, glumly.  
“I think that sounds like a good idea for everyone,” Jensen enforced, and the other men agreed with him.  
Frankie wished everyone goodnight, with a hug, and disappeared into the small bedroom at the back of the house. Jensen grouped everyone a little closer, so he could talk to them without his daughter overhearing.  
“Thank you,” he said, unable to meet anyone’s eyes. None of them knew how to respond, so they kept quiet. “I just don’t know how to talk to her. Marinne - my wife - was always the one the kids went to when they were sad. Tobias was grown up, and about to start his own family by the time she died. So it was just me to try and comfort Frankie, and take care of the home. Frankie was quiet for so long, until she was allowed to start doing things with me, in the mine, on the farms and learning about shooting. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t teach her about feelings and such. I don’t know how to show mine, so how could I help someone with theirs? She seemed to thrive, but now she’s finding it hard to handle her feelings. She needs people like you. Thank you again.”  
Trott took it upon himself to reassure the man in front of him. “I will be there for Frankie when I can, she is an amazing person, and you should be proud.” The walrus’ insides started to churn a little, and his friends shuffled uncomfortably. Trott wasn’t usually one for deep words. He carried on however, “All you need to do is carry on with what you’re doing, and let her know that she doesn’t have to keep her feelings hidden.”  
After another thank you from Jensen, the three friends said goodbye to him, and headed back to an unusually quiet Clyde’s. Not much was said on the way, and it took a steady drink each, for anyone to start talking.  
“It never occurred to me that Frankie’s mother was dead,” Trott said, in bewilderment. “How did I not think?”  
“Because it’s not a usual thing,” Ross said, reassuringly. “Same with Hobie’s wife. She passed away about ten years ago, someone told me.”  
Smith breathed a laugh, “Like stories,” he started, and the others looked at him. “Well, you always have the young hero, or the child character, who only has one parent. It builds their character. Another cliche. I don’t get it, but I’m tempted to start predicting the future myself.”  
Smith’s discussion was a conversation killer, and it didn’t take long for the three men to retire to their rooms.

They all slept surprisingly well, and dressed finely for Hobie’s funeral, when the sun had just started to peer over the roofs of the buildings.  
Meeting the rest of the town at one end of the road, the three men made their way to the other end, to the graveyard. Songs and stories were sung and told, by people close to Hobie, as they moved through the town. Robin ushered Smith to the head of the procession, once he had finished his own story of his father.  
Some of the members of the band started playing, and Smith sang out all of his heartbreak. It was always a relief, to sing as proudly as he could, however he was feeling. He’d spent the early morning practicing with the instrumentalists, after saying he wanted to do it. It was a song told from the point of view of a fallen man, who was happy to finally be resting, after giving everything he could to life, and the people around him. The words were more than appropriate, and it made people smile through their tears.  
As the day descended into evening, and people left the bar, sadness returned. It had been a day of celebration for Hobie’s life, but the grim emotions were still too raw.  
“I feel like shit,” Smith stated. “I can’t imagine how anyone else is feeling.”  
“Pretty awful,” Ross replied, after a small pause.  
Trott was quiet, nursing his glass, but Ross noticed the glare in his eyes. He was deep in thought, and it worried the bearded man greatly. He left him to his thoughts, as Smith ranted.  
“That fucking guy. I’m only sorry Frankie hadn’t given him a fatal wound.”  
“Smith-” Ross calmed him a little.  
“Frankie was the miracle. She was the miracle we needed. It was like something in a story-” the green man cut his sentence short, wishing he could withdraw it. This wasn’t the time to be talking or speculating about these theories again.  
“Trott?” Ross changed the subject, unsure of what kind of reaction he would get, as the walrus hadn’t moved in a good few minutes.  
There was no answer at first, and the two taller men looked at each other, concerned.  
“Mate-” Smith tried to be as gentle as he could, but Trott looked at both of them slowly, with a face of furious embers. He’d been stewing something dark in his mind for quite a while.  
“George was one of the bastards who’s in the jail, right?” He asked, his voice scathing.  
“Yeah,” Ross stumbled over the reply, and meant to ask Trott the significance of his question, but he didn’t have a chance.  
The walrus stood, and headed to the door. “I’m going to get some fucking answers,” he explained.  
He knew that his friends wouldn’t follow. They would have realised that this was something he needed to do on his own, and he was washed with a fleeting contentment, feeling lucky to have the friends he did. It almost made him well up again.  
Trott made his way to the door, to speak to the sheriff, who was sitting just inside.“Can I speak to George?” Trott asked the tall woman behind the desk.  
She sighed. “You’d be the fourth person to try, Trottimus. But if you think you can get anything from him, then we can go down, sure.” Sheriff Wade led the way down the small set of stairs, and to the cells, where the bandits were being held.  
They were separate from each other, spaced out so they couldn’t talk between themselves, and George was in the cell closest to the stairs. He was sitting on the small bed, brushing his dusty boots with a cloth.  
“Come to the door, George. Someone wants to speak to you.” Wade stood aside to let Trott go to the heavy iron door. George saw him, and his eyes twinkled with amusement. It unsettled the walrus, but he stood firm.  
“I won’t talk with her listening in.” George said, sternly. Wade sighed and rolled her eyes.  
“Maybe he wants to talk to you,” she murmured, before heading back up the stairs. It surprised Trott that she trusted him enough to leave the two alone. After all, no one really knew who he and his friends were.  
George got up and walked to the door.  
“Hello, George,” Trott started the conversation.  
“Hi, Trott.”  
Trottimus gasped.  
“Yeah, I know your name. I know who you are.” George nodded, triumphantly.  
“How?” The question fired out of Trott’s mouth, and it was full of determined rage. He’d had enough. It was time to get some truth, and the walrus was now more sure than ever that George would be his key to finding it.  
The jailed man grinned. “I can’t tell you that exactly, but you’re right in thinking that you are close. It’s taken long enough, but you’re close.”  
“What the hell are you talking about?” Trott asked, sure that George would rather lead him in circles than give away much more, but he had to try and find out.  
“Why do you think we want gold?” George asked, shifting the power away from Trott.  
The young man took the bait: “Because you’ve got nothing better to do than punish the people of this town? I don’t know, maybe you get a kick out of it or something.”  
George laughed. “Think about it, walrus. You are far more intelligent than this, come on, think of all the things you have done on your travels, and adventures.” He almost spat the last word, like it was supposed to be some sort of clue, and it made Trott’s brain hurt.  
His mind raced through all that he could remember about his travels and the experiences on the way. But this was like none of those times. This was different. They weren’t fighting hordes of monsters, or traversing small platforms above lava.  
Trott then went back to the morning he had arrived at Hobie’s farm. How had he got there? He remembered the books, the strange events, the mine. The mine.  
“Why do you want the gold?” Trott’s question had much more emphasis behind it this time, and it made George smile again.  
“We ride into town, every now and then, making demands for the gold, scaring the people who live here into submission. They need to keep up their work, so you could call us inspectors if you like, just keepin’ things runnin’ smooth.”  
“Who sends you?” Trott questioned forcefully.  
George laughed again. It infuriated Trottimus at the best of times when someone knew more than he did, especially when they mocked him for it. The walrus gripped one of the bars of the door, to hold back from screaming at the man on the other side.  
“See? Now you’re beginning to get it.” His eyes went quickly from amusement to seriousness, as he told his story, “Eros is the one who speaks to them, so I don’t know exactly, but put it this way; we don’t do anything with the gold. It goes right to where all the other gold does. We only steal it when the people of this town start slowing the pace. They soon pick it up again after that. That’s about all I can tell you, Trott.”  
The older man blinked a few times, waiting for the reaction.  
“Why did you tell me this?” Trott asked, feeling a little enlightened at least.  
“Because the time has come for this to end. I didn’t want Hobie to die, and I certainly don’t want any more bloodshed, so I’m giving you a little head start.”  
Trottimus pondered, “But you’re a bandit. I thought shedding blood came with the job description. So why did you join the bandits in the first place?” Trott saw the broken heart in George’s face.  
“I didn’t have a choice. They said I had to steal for them, or they would burn my bar down. They knew I’d be exiled, and they made me one of their own. I knew about the town, I could give them inside information.” It was clear he was telling the truth.  
“Why don’t you tell someone, they’d let you back-”  
George looked solemnly at Trott. “Maybe I will be able to, if you can change things for us. For now, I’m safe in my jail cell.”  
This scared Trott. He wondered what it could possibly be, or who could possibly have that sort of power over a whole village of people. Then George’s last sentence resonated. “Did you get captured on purpose?” Trott asked, hushed.  
George merely smiled. “Go into the mine, Trott. As soon as you can.”

Trottimus certainly was not angry anymore, and a little less clueless. At least they were right in thinking there was something huge holding influence over them, and that the key was in the mine. All he could think of now was to relay what George had said, quickly, and get himself and his friends to the mine.  
It didn’t take much to convince Smith and Ross that they needed to go as soon as they could. Who was to say if Eros had gone back to whoever he took his orders from, and told them what had happened? Who was to say what would happen next? They clearly knew who the three men were, and where they had come from. They could have been the ones who made everything happen, and in that case there was no telling what was next in store.  
The only thing the travellers had going for them at this time was the fact that whoever was behind it all couldn’t know that George had revealed anything, so they hopefully had a slight advantage.  
“We can’t just barge our way in there, though. It would be so disrespectful,” Ross pointed out, and the others agreed.

They stopped at Jensen’s gate. He was standing outside, with a hand on Frankie’s shoulder. they were both looking at the stars, with their backs to them. It was a moment not to be disturbed, but Frankie turned anyway, she must have heard them.  
She smiled, and waved gently to them. Jensen turned too, and they made their way over to the three men at their gate.  
“No one’s sleeping tonight, then?” Smith guessed, a wry grin on his face.  
“I couldn’t. I tried, but I just wanted to stare at the stars instead. You can’t see them properly through a window.” Jensen smiled down at his daughter as she spoke.  
“You couldn’t be more right there, Frankie.” Trott replied, earnestly.  
“Are you fellas alright?” Jensen asked.  
“Well, here’s the thing,” Trott thought he should explain enough to Jensen to arouse his concern, without saying anything that would scare him or Frankie, for that matter. He figured she had had enough to deal with for one night. “We want to go into the mine. Tonight.”  
“You can’t!” Frankie exclaimed.  
“It’s ok, Frankie, I spoke to George, and he told me that the answer to why we are here is in there. And he said we need to go as soon as we can.” It wasn’t working. Trott had to tell the truth. He sighed deeply, and explained what he could; about how it wasn’t true that gold should be sent to the same place, about Eros being merely a pawn in someone else’s game, and that the game was dangerous to everyone in the village.  
“I don’t have all the answers, but I will find them out for you,” he assured.  
Jensen and Frankie were both deeply shocked. After all, they had just been told that the whole base of their community was a lie.  
“I want to come with you. You’ve seen me shoot, I can back you up.” Frankie pushed up against the fence in order to clutch at her walrus friend. “Please?”  
Trott could only shake his head. He saw his own younger self in the girl before him; naive and vulnerable, but with such courage and need for adventure.  
“No, Frankie. It’s going to be too dangerous. It won’t be like shooting monsters during target practice. We don’t know what’s down there.” Jensen stroked Frankie’s head softly, and she calmed her excitement. She accepted her father’s words, albeit reluctantly, and leaned into him.  
Jensen kissed the top of her head before saying, “We can both go to the entrance though. We can wait for them to come out, if you like?”  
Frankie smiled up at him, “Yeah, I’d like that,” she replied. “Let me get some supplies for you. I’ve got hot milk on the stove!”  
The three friends’ spirits were lifted by the girl’s enthusiasm, and not one of them could turn down the idea of a warm drink on their way to the mine entrance.  
“Are you sure you don’t want anyone going with you?” Jensen asked.  
“From the sounds of things, this is our fight,” Ross said. He then added, “For some reason,” and recalled the books, Smith’s scorns about cliches, and the strangeness of there being no tales of anything beyond the village and the sand surrounding it. It troubled his already weary mind, so he shook it off. He’d find the truth soon enough. “Besides, three people are easier to hide than four or five, I suppose.”  
Jensen laughed quietly, and murmured agreement. They got to the entrance, and with Jensen’s help they were let into the mine.  
The mine was no less lit than it had been the previous day, but everything about it was suddenly eerie. Smith put it down to the mine being so quiet in comparison to when everyone was working, which must have been part of it, but all three knew that fear of the unknown was a much bigger factor.  
With their hearts beating fast with anticipation, the three friends climbed into a cart each and the bold, tall, green gentleman readied himself to hit the lever in front of him, leading the way.  
“Whatever is in there, we can do this, guys,” Smith stated, in a low, serious tone, but Ross had to laugh.  
“Smith, you sound ridiculous. What happened to your dislike of awful cliches?” Ross’ words made Trott laugh too, and Smith’s eyebrows furrowed. He said nothing, and hit the lever, sending the three of them down the dark, noiseless tunnel at a steady pace.  
“Now, a cliche would be if the carts hurtled down this track, but it’s quite pleasant, actually,” Trott said, placing sporadic torches on the wall as they went.  
“Maybe there will be some elaborate winding tracks towards the end, signalling the climax of our journey, that’s always good,” Ross added.  
“Mm,” Smith agreed. “Then a big drop into water, or something.”  
The three companions joked for a while, the smiles and laughter merely hiding their still heavy hearts, and anxiousness.  
It didn’t last for too long, though. The jokes quickly dried up, as they travelled deeper and deeper through the tunnel. They would pass a monster now and then, but the thing wouldn’t have time to react before the three travellers were out of reach. Any monsters unfortunate enough to be on the track didn’t seem to be much of an issue either. A swift swipe from Smith would knock them out of the way, therefore reducing the danger of the carts being derailed or damaged by crashing into skeletons, or severing zombie limbs.  
There didn’t seem to be much change in direction, just the odd turn to the left, and down, now and again, each of which would make Ross start. He was keeping a close eye on their direction. Smith was sternly facing the darkness, as if he were egging it on, and Trott continued to place torches now and then.  
“Trott, what exactly is the point of you putting torches down?” Smith challenged, a little further on, feeling somewhat irritated by the fruitlessness of it.  
The walrus blinked slowly at his friend, as if the answer was obvious the whole time. “In case we need to see our direction out. We don’t know how many connecting tunnels there could be.”  
Smith couldn’t reply. He watched his friend place torches, with such a purposeful look on his face, that it broke his heart to think of suggesting that they might not be going back out.  
A little later on, after silence had been going on for too long, Ross piped up from the back of the formation. “Guys, we are going in a spiral. It’s just a very slow one.”  
The others turned to him, to see a hand running over his bearded chin, as he was in thought. He stared at both of them. “This place we are going to is not going to be that far from the mine entrance, it’s just a long way down.”  
Trott and Smith were concerned, but Ross shrugged after a little more beard stroking.  
“I suppose it makes sense really. I mean, if you were overlording a little village, you wouldn’t be very far away from it, would you?”  
“I guess not,” Trott agreed.  
There was another pause, before Smith groaned in frustration, “How much longer is there? It’s getting boring now-” His last word trailed off, as his eyes stung with heat and light coming suddenly at him.  
They all stood up, and faced the opening ahead. The tracks continued onto a tiny stone bridge over a floor of lava, which covered the bottom of a huge cave. It stretched for about a hundred feet above them, and the lava sprawled around the same below them. The heat was almost unbearable, and the lack of air was terrifying. However, the carts seemed to travel quickly over the bridge, to a clearly carved stone entrance to somewhere.  
Another tunnel faced the three men once they had gone through the carved opening, but this one was very different. It was lined with torches, and it was wider. There were no monstrous obstacles, and the stone had been smoothed, so it looked almost inviting. The carts slowed, and came to a stop beside a set of double doors in front. Smith, Trott and Ross looked at each other, wordlessly asking if they were ready, and replying with a nod.  
Heaving the doors open, Smith walked through. His eyes adjusted to the space before him. It was vast, and the ceiling stretched to beyond where the light could hit. There were no other doors that he could see, but there were three strips of carpet stretching the length of the room, towards three pools of light, each over a chest. One strip was green, one blue and one red. Smith raised his eyebrows, wondering if the three of them had simply walked into a trap.  
The flagstone floor which covered the rest of the room was adorned with stacks of books, and upon closer inspection books covered every inch of the walls.  
“This is one heck of a library,” Smith stated the obvious as his eyes traced the room. Coming back to the illuminated chests, he inhaled deeply.  
“I don’t like this,” he said, plainly.  
“Trap?” Trottimus asked, and his green friend nodded.  
Nevertheless, Alsmiffy marched along the green carpet, towards his chest, but as he got closer, he saw that something stood in front of it. It was a pedestal, with a book upon it.  
“Come over here,” he called, his voice echoing off the stone floor.  
“Should I,” Trott knew it was a naive question, but he asked it anyway, “should I walk down the red carpet? Does it matter?”  
Smith turned to him, a disillusioned look upon his face, even though Trott couldn’t see it. “No,” he replied sarcastically, but he had to smile at the shuffling walrus making his way warily over to him. Ross was at his side quickly, almost recoiling in fear at the sight of the book in front of him.  
“I know,” Smith muttered, soothingly. “Mate, I don’t want to read about how we’re going to die.”  
Trott joined them, and whispered, “Oh gods.”  
“Ross?” The bearded man looked to Smith, and he continued, “Seeing as you are the one who found the books, do you want to do the honours?”  
“Honours?” Ross repeated, trying to think of a word which would have been worse to use in this situation. Still, he sighed, and stepped up to the displayed book. It was bound in a deep navy, but this time it had a title: The Truth. Ross slowly turned the cover open, and read the words aloud;  
‘You have found me - The Truth. Congratulations, Ross. That’s right, Ross. I knew you’d be the one to open the pages, after all, you have been the one to find the books, as I intended. I suppose congratulations have to go to Alsmiffy too, as he was the one screaming to the rest of you at how wrong everything seemed. Poor Alsmiffy, you would get so close, but your need for everything to be explained to you in small portions so you can understand, meant that you didn’t want to see the truth in front of you. You kept calling out all my cliches, but talked down Ross’ evidence that the situation you are in was never real. Let me tell you something, Smith; cliches are fun to write, and I like them. Plus they are super easy. It makes my job less of a chore.’  
“Wait, what?” Smith was stunned, mouth open, eyes almost invisible in a squint.  
Ross shook his head, and decided the best course of action would be to carry on.  
‘Trottimus, you have been the best. It was great to watch how your character developed, and that showdown thing? I knew you had it in you, and I knew I could get it out of you. I’m particularly proud of that bit.  
Well, by now you are probably thinking you’re going completely mad, but you’re not. I’m sorry, but I was getting so bored. Being a Watcher is a lonely job-’  
Ross stopped. “It’s a bloody Watcher, guys!”  
Trott and Smith reacted in much the same way. “Fuck sake, we should have known,” Smith whined.  
“Carry on!” Trott demanded.  
‘A lonely job which means that I need things to occupy my time. I thought you three had been sitting pretty on your butts for too long, frankly. I wrote a story, and put you in it. I call myself The Storyteller, and none of this has been real. But it felt real, right? That’s my meanie side coming out, I’m afraid. I feel a bit bad about making you care about the people and stuff, but I’m picturing your faces right now, and doing a lol.’  
“Doing a lol?” Ross repeated, screaming in disbelief.  
‘Long story short (haha), I got bored about halfway through, when you got jobs and whatever. I was writing about the card game and dancing, and thinking to myself that I could really do with a good boogie and some gambling. So I went to Vegas for a bit. You’ve been there, you know how FUCKING COOL it is, right?’  
The three friends looked at each other, dumbfounded. What, and where is Vegas? Things were getting stranger as each sentence went on, which infuriated them all. However, the sense of perilous danger had long since evaporated.  
‘Point being, when I came home it took a while to get back into the flow of writing. I had to shelve a lot of stuff that I’d initially wanted to put in there, like Smith was going to have a love story and stuff. Would have been fun for the fans, but man, more cliches? Though I think a love story starring Alsmiffy would be anything but cliched… wink wink Smiff.’  
“What the fuck?” Smith directed his shout to the book, and Trott had to stifle a laugh.  
‘So, I decided it was time to try and wind up the story and get to the end. However, it was taking all of you so bloody long to get anywhere, that I thought you needed a bit of a push. How was I going to last another week, with you lot being all sad, before coming here during the party? Everyone knows the party is the happy ending, where all loose ends are tied up, before you go home. Oh yeah, forgot to say, there are gold crowns in each of the chests, which will send you home when you put them on. They look super cool, and I couldn’t think of anything better to use. It would be awesome if you all stood together in a little circle or something, and put them on together. That would be some movie style stuff.’  
“Movie? What the heck does that mean?” Trott quizzed, and the others shrugged.  
‘Anyway, when Trott got upset after the funeral, and went to chat to George-’  
“Chat? I did not want to chat with him! I was fuming! Who is this idiot?” Trott lost it a little, and Ross looked up, sympathetically.  
“Trott, you do know that we are still in The Storyteller’s world, right? They know what you are saying,” Ross was calm, until Smith’s eyes widened more than he had ever seen before. The tall man didn’t speak, but pointed to where he was looking at the book. Ross and Trott both turned to see the astonishing sight; the words on the page parted, and a new line of text started to appear, as if it were being written then and there:  
‘Yep, I do,’ it read, simply.  
“Oh fuck me,” the walrus mumbled.  
Ross swallowed, “Can’t we just ask you the questions we want answered?” He spoke to the looming, dark ceiling, as he imagined The Storyteller to be omnipotent. They had to be, really.  
Words appeared in a reply, ‘AWWW but I spent ages writing this big, long explanation….. SIGH just finish it, then if you have questions I will answer at the end.’  
Ross felt a bit silly saying “Okay,” to the air, but the others didn’t laugh. They were keen for this ridiculousness to be done with.  
‘Anyway, when Trott got upset at the funeral, and went to chat with George, I saw my opportunity to give you a little push in the right direction. And woo, it worked. So now you are here, and yeah, sorry about making it feel real, but basically none of this actually happened. It’s like The Wizard of Oz, or any story that’s ever ended in “It was all a dream.” Cop out, I know, but I have loved every minute. Those clothes? The music? Smith, I’m proud of that bit too, giving you some wicked cool bluegrass and country music to listen to, and it was like you were all familiar with it and everything. That was a nice reference I think.’  
“A reference to what?” The green man shouted and gestured with his arms open, begging The Watcher for an answer.  
‘QUESTIONS AT THE END DAMMIT!!!!’ The words appeared, and Ross hissed.  
“Don’t piss them off, for fuck’s sake, we don’t want them doing some horrible shit to us. Who knows, maybe if we die here, we actually die,” The dark haired man’s words were enough to calm Smith.  
‘The body cannot live without the mind… lolololololol’  
Ross gripped the side of the pedestal and had to bite his tongue. He was getting frustrated, and decided to carry on reading.  
‘You played your parts exactly how I wanted - and expected - you to, and I hope you have enjoyed it enough. I don’t want you being upset or too angry, and I certainly don’t want to have fucked you up in the head, so I’m going to leave the world open for you to travel in and out of. Just put the crowns on, and you will come back here, so you can hang out or whatever. And no, you can’t bring people or objects back with you, they are most deffo not real, so will do like, a puffed up thing, and explode. Maybe. Okay maybe not, but it won’t work, end of. But hey, isn’t that a nice thing that I can do for you? Hope it makes up for any shittiness you might be feeling. Smith, I know you will be the hardest to forgive and/or forget, but if I say that you are cute as fuck in that jacket, would it help?’  
Ross looked up at Smith. His face was nothing less than interested, a little charmed perhaps. He noticed that Ross had stopped talking, and did a double take to see him staring.  
“What?” He asked quietly.  
“Well, there’s a gap in the page. I think The Storyteller wants an answer.” Amusement shone in Ross’ eyes as he waited for Smith’s reply.  
The tall, green man lifted his nose, pompously, but he was singing inside. “Fine,” he said, shortly, smoothing the suede of his jacket, proudly. Ross and Trott caught each other’s glances, and rolled their eyes.  
“Thank you, gorgeous,” Ross read the fresh words that had appeared in the gap aloud, and made an indignant face.  
‘So, I hope that you have enjoyed yourselves, and I hope that you continue to enjoy the world I created for you. Who knows, maybe sometime in the future I will get to write another story for you. I’d like that. In the meantime, don’t forget that there are six more Watchers that you are yet to meet. They’re not all as fun as me, so you have been warned. BOOM, Storyteller OUT.’  
“That’s it,” Ross stated. There was a short silence.  
‘Helloooooo………..’  
“Yeah, you had better sound sheepish, dammit,” Trott called to the darkness.  
“Firstly, how did you get us here?” Ross questioned.  
‘Erm, that’s a hard one to answer. I had a bit of help from someone, but you can’t know who they are yet, spoilers and all that. But pretty much the same way as you will get out of here, and get back in.’  
Ross sighed at the knowledge that this was clearly not over, that they could be at the mercy of any of The Watchers at any point, and not know it, and there would be no escape. So, he thought of a follow up question, “How can we trust you? How do we know that the crowns will get us home?”  
‘I don’t want to kill you. None of us want to kill you. We like you, you lot are seriously funny and make great adventurers. It’s just a bit of fun for us. If you like, I could try and give you some warning next time.’  
“Yeah, that would be nice,” Smith scorned.  
‘I am sorry, it was a bit impulsive, really.’  
“We feared for our lives, and each other’s!” Trott exclaimed.  
‘Yeah… like I say, I can only apologise, and hope that my peace offerings are enough.’  
“Well, we don’t have a choice really,” Ross finalised.  
Smith sighed. “Why do you want gold?” He asked.  
‘.....I don’t. It was just a good plotline. If you like, I can create a gold hoarding baddie?’  
“No! Just, leave the people to live their lives, yeah? Don’t give them some evil power to follow,” Smith was struggling with the absurdity of the situation, and exhaustion washed over him. He put his hands on his hips and huffed.  
‘Okay, okay. Maybe that bit was for my own self-gratification. Writers love to do that, you know.’  
“So, all the stuff that didn’t feel like real life, such as us managing to find each other easily, and when Sheriff Wade left me to talk alone with George, that was all just convenience?” Trott wondered. “That is sloppy, bad writing.”  
‘Trott! That’s not a nice thing to say! It was only sloppy because I didn’t want to have to carry on this story forever. I have so many ideas for so many worlds, I have to move on. Crikey, I know how J K Rowling feels.’  
“That’s another thing, what are all these references? I don’t understand,” Ross piped.  
‘Oh yeah, I forget where you are sometimes. Put it this way, there are lots of worlds and planes of existence. Too many to count. My references come from them…. sort of. Are you guys following at all? You look kind of despondent.’  
“No, I am not. You talk like there is one big overworld or something.” Smith’s head was swimming.  
‘Ooooh, you! I said nothing of the sort…..I don’t really want to tell you too much, I think I already have. Just know that you are all your own person, and only you can choose your futures.’  
“Apart from the last few days, though,” Trott challenged.  
‘Yeah, ok. But it made for a better story that way! Maybe next time I will just give you some challenges and stuff. Fulfil my need for cliches with silly characters.’  
“I would much prefer that, you know,” Smith said, in a low tone.  
‘Okay, can I go now? Or have you got more questions?’  
“I have a question,” Trott started. “Can you get rid of the bandits? Let the villagers live in peace? They are all so nice.”  
‘But what’s a story with no villains?’  
“It’s not a story anymore.”  
‘Okay, fine. Eros can repent, go to jail, along with the rest of them, and George can come back, no questions. That good? They have the potential to come back in a sequel then.’  
Trott sighed, “Will you bring Hobie back?,” he knew the question was pointless.  
‘Oh, Trott I can’t do that. Things need to move on. There needs to be a painful bit in the story, which everyone wants to change, but at the same time, it helps the characters grow, and ultimately assists in the ending of the story. I’m sorry, but Hobie isn’t Gandalf, and he’s not a Jedi. Sorry, more references.’  
Trott was too tired to argue, but his heart was heavy, coping with the loss of someone that never even existed.  
‘Anything else?’  
The companions looked at each other, but no one had anything left to say. “I don’t think so, we are ready to wrap this thing up, now,” Smith stated, hurriedly. He was tired and hungry.  
‘Okay, I’m ready to finish this now, and leave you lot to it. I hope I haven’t warped your minds too much, because I’d love to meet you again……..’  
“The pleasure would be all mine, as long as you give me that love story next time,” The tall, green gentleman thought he should round off the experience nicely, for fear of what sort of mess The Storyteller might get them into in the future.  
‘Tee hee! Oh stop, I’m blushing. But I’m sure something can be arranged. Listen, enjoy the world, and just use the crowns any time you like. I’ll be watching, but I won’t get involved unless you want me to. Okay? It’s the most I can offer to say sorry for all the peril and whatever.’  
“Okay, thank you. And it’s been fun, minus the peril,” Smith shot a look at Trott who clearly didn’t agree. “Keep them sweet,” he whispered to the walrus under his breath. Trott rolled his eyes.  
“I have one last request,” Trott shouted to the sky. “I want to go forward to the date of the fair, where people are happy, and things have moved on. And I want there to be a massive buffet of food.”  
‘What, now?’  
“Yes.”  
‘Okay, bye, see you soon, kiss kiss. Oh, wait. Don’t forget your crowns. Can you… can you do it sort of ceremoniously?’ There was a short pause. ‘I can tell by Trott’s face that’s a no...’  
Ross took each crown from its chest, and gave them out.  
‘Okay, BYEEEE!’

In an instant, the three friends were standing outside the entrance to one of the bigger fields of the village. It was dusk, but the whole field was lit with no expense or space spare, so it made the area for miles glow bright orange, as the lights reflected all over the land. The sound of festively frantic notes being played on well-loved instruments carried as far as the light, and the desert seemed to sigh with life.  
As Trottimus, Ross and Alsmiffy entered the gated entrance, there was a distinct warmth surrounding the whole place, but it wasn’t the temperature; smiles from friends, the smells of cooking meats and sugar, and the sounds of music, laughter and animals happily enjoying the change in scenery were enough to make each of the men question how any of this could possibly be unreal.  
Many people greeted them, but no one asked where they had been, and no one seemed to be bothered about the mine. This was simply a party, and it’s how everyone, Trott especially, wanted the story to end.  
A pop up bar held a wooden sign reading: Clyde’s. The companions walked over to indulge, but Clyde wasn’t behind the bar. He was sitting at it, drinking with some regulars. The drinks were being poured by George, and he immediately dealt out two whiskeys and a bottle of beer, as if he’d been serving the three of them forever.  
“George is working for you now, Clyde?” Trott asked, his heart a lifted a little more at the sight.  
“Sure. Uncle couldn’t do much about his situation with Eros and the bandits, so I had to ask him back after the messy business was done with. He taught me all know, after all. He wouldn’t let me name the bar George’s though, and he insisted on being employed by me.” Clyde shrugged. “I guess he feels like people wouldn’t like it if that happened.”  
“Or he knows that you have more than proved yourself, and have worked too hard for him to justify taking it away from you,” Ross raised his eyebrows and smiled at the bar owner. Clyde grinned.  
“Thank you,” he said, simply.  
“We are heading home soon, Clyde. We wanted to enjoy the party, but not before we say thank you ourselves for what you have done for us,” Smith was good with words when they were genuine.  
Clyde shook his head. “You know you are welcome anytime,” he gestured, possibly thanks the whiskey. “Anytime!” He reinforced.  
A hearty goodbye followed amongst them all, as the people drank their drinks together.  
After the heat of alcohol had trickled across their skin, the three friends moved further into the festival. In the centre, a wooden dancefloor had been set up, surrounded by a wooden awning, decorated in garlands and lights. It was an oasis, full of dancing patrons, egged on by the band, and watched over gleefully by Mayor Robin. His eyes were shining with happiness, and Trott followed his smile, as it travelled in a line through the crowd. When he got to the edge, so he was looking and smiling down in front of him, it was clear what the expression was for. Frankie had made her way to the mayor, and took his hand to dance. Trott smiled, both with pride and relief. The walrus knew he couldn’t have left this place without knowing Frankie was going to be fine, whether any of it was real or not.  
They all watched for a few minutes, until Jensen appeared beside them.  
“So, you fellas going home after the party?” He asked, friendliness on his face.  
Smith’s heart skipped. He’d forgotten that he and Frankie said they would wait outside the entrance to the mine. What was supposed to have happened in the time between then and now? Had they supposedly told him anything?  
“Yes, I think so. I miss the rain. Never thought I’d say that,” Ross sadly smiled. It was the truth, however. He did miss home. Even if they didn’t often keep the same home, the village had never felt quite right. Now knowing the truth, he felt it even more. He longed to touch his own possessions, to feel the real breeze, and to finish the extension. He’d left it half done, which always annoyed him.  
Jensen nodded. “Frankie and me are going exploring. When you go, we’ll go somewhere too.”  
The three men were shocked. “But what if there’s nothing but desert?” Trott asked, worriedly.  
Jensen smiled, almost knowingly. “It can’t go on forever, you fellas have convinced me of that.” He said no more, but moved to catch his daughter’s attention.  
Frankie bounded over, grabbing whoever’s arm she could. “You have to dance, all of you!”  
It was useless to argue, as it always is with a spirited twelve year old, and the lights of the dancefloor became brighter and brighter, as the three companions joined their friends, and the band triumphantly leapt into their next number.


End file.
